Teach For Uganda

In June 2022 Teach for Uganda working in Mayuge district contracted TLAEA to train over 100 school dropout girls in business development employability skills.

Teach For Uganda is a non-profit organization working towards transforming leadership in Uganda's education sector and public service, with a vision of ensuring that all children in Uganda will one day attain an equitable quality education. It recruits, trains and places top Ugandan graduates to serve in rural school communities as leaders in the classroom (teachers), and community mobilisers to help transform attitudes, mind-set and practices towards valuing education for all children in Uganda.

Teach For Uganda operates in Luwero, Mayuge and Namutumba districts, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and sports and the local government authorities.

Mayuge is situated in East Central Uganda. It is one of the poorest districts in the country with a poverty rate of 24.5 percent and one where progress in reducing poverty has been slowest. environmental degradation and rapid population have contributed to land fragmentation and declining yields to farmers leading to significant challenges for its largely rural smallholder farming and fishing communities (Republic of Uganda 2015; Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development 2014) youth unemployment has become a particular challenge, with few formal sector jobs available; at the same time, child labour in the informal sector is on the rise fueled by need for labour on sugarcane plantations, rice farms and fisheries while the development in the urban trading centers has thrown up new social challenges (Mayuge District Local Government 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2012, 2013).

It is from the above background that such underprivileged girls are the ones Teach for Uganda is supporting in the communities through the education fellows' (volunteers) program. Having realized business skills gaps among the school dropout girls in Mayuge district area of operation and the need to equip them to start and operate businesses, Teach For Uganda engaged the services of The Link Agency East Africa (TLAEA) a Business Development Services (BDS) Consultancy firm that works in the communities with an aim of overcoming poverty through sustainable economic empowerment and development of entrepreneurs, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to conduct business skills training to the selected 100 school dropout girls from several villages supported by Teach For Uganda in Mayuge.

Specifically, the training focused on empowering the girls with basic business planning, enterprise selection, business management, and financial record keeping, branding and marketing of products, savings and product making skills in order to ensure those girls who have/have not yet started) manage their businesses efficiently based on the knowledge acquired from the training.