At least 420 Ugandan returnee migrant workers have achieved business/entrepreneurship skills to facilitate their reintegration within society from their return from the Middle East.
The 420 are part of the International Labour Organization(ILO)’s Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM) program implemented by Wezesha Impact, using the ILO's Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) methodology, with a focus on sustainable livelihoods through self-employment or wage employment.
Speaking during the function, Solomon Kayiwa Mugambe, the Executive Director of Wezesha Impact said the program focuses on enabling youths get skills to be able to start their own enterprises.
“These are people who have worked in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan and many of those countries where the young people usually go to look for greener pastures. These went , worked for a couple of years and then returned. We have trained them to start their own businesses and sustaining them,” Mugambe said.
“You will realise that when these young people go abroad, they make some money but some of them lose it while others save it. Often times they don’t know what to do with the money as they don’t know how to generate business ideas or how to create opportunities. We are giving them entrepreneur skills and work readiness so they can create a livelihood.”
The Wezesha Impact Managing Director said many of these youths return home under unwanted circumstances, including deportation and therefore require psychosocial support to be able to reintegrate into society.
“Some return when tortured while others make the money but it is wasted by their relatives. Restoring their hope that they can still become somebody and still make a living is another thing we do as part of this program.”
“We give them skills in financial management and generation of business ideas.”
He said that the beneficiaries are got from the database of the Ministry of Gender since it licences companies to take them abroad for jobs, noting that they must have returned to the country within a period of at most four years and must be youths.
According to Mugambe, they also collaborate with Finance Trust Bank to provide grants to the beneficiaries of the training so they can start their own enterprises using skills learnt.
Nives Wanyama, one of the beneficiaries hailed the program for changing her life.
“I was working as a waitress in Dubai but got deported since I didn’t have a work permit, having gone there using a visit visa and it expired. One day I was arrested, detained and later deported me. Imagine, after two years in Dubai, I only had shs3 million that I had been sending to relatives back home. It is what I used to start a small business,” she said.
“With this program, I have learnt that with small amounts of money, you can start something and later grow big. This program has built confidence in me not to fear starting any business.”
Andrew Mukulu, an official from the International Labour Organisation(ILO) said the program to train returnee migrants aims to support aspirations of the Ugandan government to train youths who are majority in the country.
“This program is funded by the government of UK . Whenever we talk about becoming a middle income country, the hope is in young people being actively employed. This program is trying to achieve that aspiration of Uganda’s national development plan,” Mukulu said.
He said the International Labour Organisation will continue supporting Uganda in its efforts to skill the population.