Education

Austrian Development Cooperation, Jugend Eine Welt and Salesian Province of AGL join hands to increase Girls Participation in TVET

By Ange de la Victoire DUSABEMUNGU

The salesians of Don Bosco in the Africa of Great Lakes Province have expressed their special gratitude to the Austrian Development Cooperation, through Jugend Eine Welt organization, following the launch of the new project called “Gender Matters for Green TVET” to be implemented in 5 salesian TVET centres in Uganda and Rwanda.

The beneficiary centres are Don Bosco Muhazi, Don Bosco Gatenga, Don Bosco Palabek, Don Bosco Bombo and Don Bosco Kamuli TVET schools.

According to Mr. Mutala Innocent, AGL Project manager for Gender Matters for Green TVET, which is starting from 2023 to 2026, “The project wants to increase the participation of girls and young women in TVET”.

We want to increase the participation and access of girls and young women in TVET.” Said Mutala Innocent, the Project Manager for AGL Province

 For instance at Don Bosco Muhazi, Mr. Mutala said “we are going to introduce agriculture courses in the form of short courses because the overall project is focusing on four courses namely Plumbing, agriculture, electrical and solar.”

So it happens that in Muhazi we don’t have any of these focal courses. So we like to introduce agriculture short courses so that we empower the young people to be able to practice professional agriculture.” He said.

 “Then we shall also introduce the JSO office for the project and we shall also have a Gender officer who will support our youth, our young people in areas of social life and issues of protection.”

Commenting on the project after visiting Don Bosco Gatenga TVET School in Rwanda where the project will be also implemented, Ms. Johanna Dreher, the Jugend Eine welt, Austria programme manager also revealed that apart from increasing the opportunities for girls and women to also participate in TVET training, the project also seeks to enable them to have better access in the labor market after graduation.

On the reason why the project focuses on Girls and women, Ms. Johanna said that previous studies have shown that girls and women are still few in TVET so the project is an advantage for them.

We had another project previously for the last four years, and we found out through evaluation, we found out that there is still a gap between the opportunities of boys and girls. So we want to close this gap and try to improve the opportunities for girls so they’re more independent because they still are financially dependent on other people from the family, their husbands and so on.” She said,

She explained that the project seeks to put more focus on courses that are sustainable.

So we are focusing on sustainable energy, plumbing, electrical and agriculture courses as well as solar Energy.”

 For the last four years, Jugend Eine Welt has been implementing the solar project in Uganda and Ethiopia and the impact of the project was good, according to Ms. Johanna.

We found out that it had a very good impact because also the evaluation showed us that students who took part in the courses, short term and long term courses, get faster jobs after they finish the courses. So this is very important for us. It shows us that it was successful and also the students were very positive about the program. They participated and it was really helpful for them as they too told us. So we hope to achieve this also with the actual current program which is called Gender Matters for Green TVET.” She said,

Ms. Johanna requested young girls and women to feel they are capable persons and can contribute a lot in societal changes.

From my point of view, the personal message that I have is that be trusting in yourself. You can do it. We can all do it. No matter if we are boys or girls, we are all the same. Try to look for environment support in the community so you can achieve your goals, your objectives and I’m sure that we all can do it. We have to believe in ourselves and we have to be together with others. We have to break the barriers so we all have the same opportunities and we can achieve this together.” She said,

For Father Raymond Bavumiragiye, the Provincial Vicar who is also the Director of the Don Bosco Muhazi School, one of the beneficiary schools of Gender Matters for Green TVET Project, “The Province of the AGL is always ready to collaborate for the successful realization of this project. »

“We are always ready to collaborate for the successful realization of his project by putting all our strength and all the gifts that the Lord has given us so that this project can go ahead and can go well. » he said

May the Lord bless our benefactors, may the Lord bless this organization through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, via her son, the Lord Jesus, and through the particular eye of Don Bosco for us, then we ask the descent of countless blessings for the country Austria, for this organization and for all these people of good will who are there to help people who are in need.” Fr. Raymond Bavumiragiye said 

 

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