Beneath the soil and from the outside: 18,800 youth in Uganda explore how to nurture the Earth for survival

The growing world population with 24 percent being young people places unprecedented pressure on countries to find meaningful engagements for young people. And in Uganda, 75 percent of the country's population practices agriculture, which is the backbone of the economy. AVSI's deliberate effort in training part of the country's 70 percent youthful population in agriculture and its value chains makes this contribution towards Sustainable Development Goal 8 to promote decent work and economic growth an attainable mission.

Since 2020 AVSI has been implementing the Dutch-funded Skilling in Agripreneurship for increased Youth Employment (SAY) project through a collaboration with 60 local agribusinesses and institutions of learning to stimulate the practice of agriculture and build young agriprenuers between the ages of 13 to 18, and those up to 30 years for engagement in agriculture for long-term career path, key economic ventures, for food and nutrition, and to ignite them towards well-paying agribusinesses and self-run agripreneurships.

AVSI's resolve to work with partners in the public and private sector such as agribusinesses, third parties, secondary schools, agri-institutions, Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to engage young people in apprenticeships using the Earn As You Learn skilling model and to ensure assessment and certification by established Government entities is yielding positive results. The intervention engenders climate-smart agriculture, market systems development and gender mainstreaming component in its implementation, while supporting youth with job connection platforms, agribusiness incubation, agribusiness challenge funds to give a boost to their businesses and interest the young people to agriculture through mindset change using sports for agribusiness, change stories, in addition to other avenues.

Between 2020 – 2023, the SAY project skilled 17,000+ youth in the different agricultural value-chains; 5,500 of whom were assessed and certified by the Directorate of Industrial Training-the Government of Uganda entity mandated to develop occupational standards. 5,400 youth are already in self-employment while 900 are reaping benefits from the skill through wage employment. Furthermore, 4,000 youngsters in 15 secondary schools will leave school with a mindset geared towards investing in agriculture, carrying the skill back to their families.

By 2024, the SAY project will have supported over 2,000 youth with booster or scale-up packages to grow and sustain their business capacity, while continuing to provide mentorship, linkage to business development services, prospects to applied exposure visits, and stretch a chance to the young people to exploit and unravel their abilities to expand into e-markets for development, communication and collaboration.