The instruction part of our vocational training programme, here in Gulu Northern Uganda, begins to wind down. We have started to follow up those who have been trained, those who have started their own businesses, become independent, earning their own living for the first time.
I have been filming those interviews an excerpt from them is here (Warning it is 16 minutes long)
We were in Gulu, Northern Uganda for two years nine months, working with a huge DFID funded vocational training programme.
Gulu is on the road to South Sudan, it was the centre of the conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Government. Many of the Internally Displaced Peoples camps were here. The northern region has been peaceful since about 2007-8 and the context has moved from emergency humanitarian aid to development work.
The Vocational Training Institutes provide opportunities for the youth(male and female aged 14-35). Most of them lived in the camps or were abducted by the LRA. They have had very little education, leaving them with few skills. Our purpose was to help these Vocational Training Institutes build up their capacity to equip the youth with what they need to earn a living and live as decent a life as possible.
On our return to the UK in 2015 we continued to have contact with one particular organisation: Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU). and have since set up a registered UK charity (ETC of PWD) that works with them. Our new vocational training programme for young people with disability in Gulu and surroundings, Vplus begins in January 2021.
From There to Here
Our Old Life, Packed Away in one Twenty Foot Container
Here
A Vocational Training Institute, Assembly under the Mango Tree
That was a very skilfully edited video, and most moving to watch too. It’s always amazing how superbly laundered the clothing is, yet in the background we see the ladies carrying the water to their houses and I cannot help feeling it’s time more plumbers were trained!
Mark and Mary in Uganda (and back) 
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July 20, 2015 at 3:50 pm
simplysorro
Inspiring stuff, Mark.
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July 21, 2015 at 7:40 am
Mark White
Thanks Paul
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July 20, 2015 at 9:00 pm
Christopher Dawkins
That was a very skilfully edited video, and most moving to watch too. It’s always amazing how superbly laundered the clothing is, yet in the background we see the ladies carrying the water to their houses and I cannot help feeling it’s time more plumbers were trained!
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July 21, 2015 at 7:40 am
Mark White
Thanks Christopher, yes plumbing is a course that is being offered more and more at the colleges we are working with.
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