Agriculture as a Lucrative Alternative to Migration in Uganda: A Young Couple’s Story
For young people in rural Uganda, poverty and lack of employment opportunities are grand challenges that prevent them from securing their basic needs and often leads to migration. Although agriculture presents a lucrative livelihood opportunity, many young people have negative attitudes towards farming or lack knowledge about how to make farming a productive business. Instead, many prefer to move to urban reas in search of greener pastures.
Youth from Uganda that do not choose migration
But this has not been the case for Henry and Rose. Unlike some youth who have migrated only to find no opportunities for gainful employment in bigger cities, the young couple stayed in rural Mityana (two hours away from the capital city – Kampala) and found agriculture to be a great income generating and livelihood sustaining activity. With the support of TeamUp, they are successfully navigating life and achieving their dreams for their family.
I decided not to go to Kampala and build my future from where my roots are. And TeamUp helped me.
TeamUp is a multi-sectoral approach to development cooperation initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and managed as well as co-financed through the three German foundations Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (DSW), Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) and Siemens Stiftung.
The program unites the expertise, networks and resources of three Ugandan organizations; Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS), Action 4 Health Uganda (A4HU) and Whave Solutions who are working in the sectors of Agriculture, Health, and Water. HRNS Uganda’s role in TeamUp is to skill youth in entrepreneurship, business development, agronomy, and key life skills. Gender training is also fully integrated in HRNS’ youth approach.
Lucrative job opportunities can stop rural-urban migration in Uganda
With more than 75% of Uganda’s population under the age of 25, and 80% of the populations unemployed being youth – the engagement of young people in agriculture has proved vital for many youth from Mityana who otherwise did not have lucrative employment prospects. Today, Henry and Rose are enjoying the fruits of their labor and their future looks bright.
Watch the video below to learn how TeamUp’s multi-sectoral approach enabled Henry and Rose to improve their livelihoods and transformed the lives of over 50,000 youth in Mityana.
At HRNS we implement programs to improve the living and working conditions of smallholder families in coffee communities around the world. This includes work in Uganda to limit unnecessary migration. Contact us for more information on our programs and approach.
