By Our reporters
DROHA Uganda, a non-profit organization in Jinja has appealed to the government for increased emphasis on technical education as a way of improving people’s lives and fighting unemployment in the country.
The remarks were made by Mr. Were Jackson Joshua – the Chief Executive Officer of DROHA – Uganda in a one on one interview with this website at the organization office at Nakanyonyi B, Bugembe Town Council in Jinja City last week.
DROHA has among other things tried to better the lives of out of school youth by equipping them with skills to ensure economic survival
in an economy where over 80% of University education recipients cannot get a job.
The beginning
When Mr. Jackson Were, the Director of DROHA Uganda – a non-profit in Bugembe on the outskirts of Jinja City, non predicted that fate would land him into caring for the poor downtrodden.
In a one on one conversation with this News outlet, Jackson shares his passion for the less fortunate poor youth, detailing how together with his good Samaritan partners around the globe have strived to go hope to the disadvantaged of society and how a passion for philanthropy was born.
We say his troublesome growing in the rural Kamuli District had brought him into contact with the reality of the suffering of a poor man’s child since his parents were not ones you would describe as economically comfortable in any way.
Admitting that he was just lucky to finish high school unlike a cluster of his contemporaries who had automatically been ejected out of the system due to the extreme poverty in the village, Jackson always had a dream of giving hope to those that faced a similar situation.
In 2017, he would attract only ridicule and discouragement from his associates when he announced he would be quitting his not so well paying but a comfortable job to pursue his calling in creating hope for the hopeless.
With no money but hope and faith, he Incorporated DROHA and had it registered with the NGO board with the hope that God would connect him to people with a similar passion along the way.
A first-hand witness to the plight of the boy child growing up into rural Ugandan communities and domestic violence, Were had observed that if boys are raised through a life of struggle and mental torture, it was obvious that they would grow up into violent men who would, in turn, exert terror to their immediate families.
He argues that such men would give rise to a violence-infested generation and the circle would become vicious unless something was done to reverse it.
He would go on to initiate programs intended to streamline boys to become responsible fathers of the future thereby specifically targeting those that were at the risk of not accessing education due to poverty and broken families.
As a result, hundreds of disadvantaged young men and women have been supported to attain education at both Primary and secondary levels.
Along the way, DROHA Uganda discovered that there was an equally vulnerable group of people that needed argent attention if at all the dream of realizing the society they dreamt of was to be realized. These were the youths who are past school-going age yet they are also deemed to be the fathers and mothers of the next generation.
At their head offices at Nakanyonyi Complex in Bugembe Town Council in Jinja, an ambitious project of Skilling the youths with hands-on skills was embarked on.
Projects like shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, welding, and metal fabrication were put in place with beneficiaries coming from all parts of Busoga.
With partnerships from both within and outside of the country, Mr. Were says they have been able to extend this kind of service to the neediest youths at no cost on their part.
Future plans.
In the years to come, Were says the organization intends to extend its operations to all parts of the country with Eastern and Northern Uganda as first priority.
He says the two regions have been arrived at due to their troublesome past with abject poverty and political instability which makes the need for physiological healing an absolute necessity.
They also have plans of building non-profit Skilling centers around the country so as to make the dream of equipping young people that may not have the means to pursue careers under formal education.
Public Appeal
DROHA Uganda appeals to all Ugandans, institutions, corporate bodies, and the Government to actively participate in programs that aim at empowering the young generation as it would serve to mitigate the damage from a dejected group of people to be entrusted with managing society in the future.
He also says the group at the Skilling school in Jinja is currently producing shoes, clothes of various types, metallic doors and windows, and a lot more, all made locally but of superior quality. He thus calls for the public to support the project by buying from the organization so as to further their cause.
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