The Uganda government through its Directorate of Industrial Training has partnered with Swisscontact a Swiss organisation together with the Uganda Hotels Owners Association to skill illiterate youths in the area of tourism and hospitality.
Under the project code-named U-learn project II, over 8200 youth are expected to benefit from skills development in a move aimed at enhance professionalism and thus address unemployment.
The project will not be limited to the hospitality industry alone but also cover agri- business and construction.
According to the parties involved, these are the areas that mainly provide employment to majority of young people with no proper training and the required professional requirements for the jobs they do.
According to Swiss Contact boss Palvos Troulis, they invested UGX 900m to enable youth from different regions of country benefit.
Speaking at a consultative workshop Troulis said that hospitality sector is one of the sectors that bring in the biggest amount of money into the country.
He however added that the biggest challenge lies with the poor hospitality services and marketing.
“Uganda has everything it takes to succeed and has become one of the most preferred destinations in Africa. Nonetheless, gaps exists in both the technical and soft skills which need to be addressed for the industry to blossom,”said Troulis.
He appreciated the fact that the support of Swisscontact, private sector players were able to develop a standardised curriculum for training young people on food production under hospitality sector.
Unveiling the program to the media in Kampala, Aloysius Kiribaki, the program coordinator at Swisscontact said the project is aimed at addressing high unemployment rates in the country and also give an opportunity to young people with skills have basic qualifications.
Susan Muhwezi said the hotel industry employs 77% of young people between 18-30 years have no qualifications in what they do.
It is at this point that Muhwezi appreciated hotel owners and the chefs for drafting the standard policy for food preparation in hotels.
Meanwhile Patrick Byakatonda, the Director at the Directorate industrial Training says the certificates will enable these youths to get jobs in different professional fields abroad instead of sticking in Uganda where there limited job opportunities for them.
