A Skills, Income and Livelihoods
(SILK) project in Karamoja, Uganda
This project by Concern Worldwide aims to build vocational skills among young
people in the Karamoja region of Uganda.
It has been carefully designed to provide them with the necessary transferable,
technical and vocational skills to help them gain access to more meaningful
employment by increasing their cash incomes and agriculture production yields,
and improving the food security in their households.
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
Concern’s work in Uganda:
Concern has been working in Uganda since 1990. Our work there is centred on livelihoods
and health. Last year, we were able to help 28,563 people.
Like many of the countries where Concern works, Uganda has been badly affected by rising
food prices. A recent surge in prices has driven inflation rates to their highest levels since
May 1994.
Concern is supporting smallhold farmers in Karamoja and Pader, helping them to increase
their productivity and sell their crops at market. Karamoja is Uganda’s poorest region,
located in the north-eastern part of the country bordering South Sudan and Kenya.
Approximately 1.2 million people, known as the Karamojong, live in the semi-arid region,
subsisting primarily as agro-pastoralists. Livestock rearing and rain-fed agriculture are the
main economic activities, with pockets of pastoralists practising irrigation, mining, fishing and
stone carving. As Uganda’s most marginalised and underdeveloped region, Karamoja has
the worst humanitarian and development indicators in the country. 88% of people in
Karamoja live in absolute poverty compared to a national average of 31%. Karamoja has the
lowest education rates in Uganda - only 6% of women and 12% of men are literate,
compared to a national average of 67%.
Project Summary:
Lack of income and food insecurity mean that communities in Karamoja can often remain
trapped in a continuous cycle of poverty. A recent history of instability, cattle raiding and
animal disease has had a drastic effect on livestock in the area. As a result, many families
have lost their traditional means of earning a living, and now have to depend more on
agriculture. But unstable weather conditions thought to be the result of climate change, are
affecting crops. While agricultural produce accounts for around 60% of household income in
Karamoja, crop yields are low and well below the national average. As subsistence farmers
who cannot produce enough to meet the needs of their families for an entire year, they
depend on cash incomes to buy food. Compared to the rest of the country, Karamoja has a
small percentage of people engaged in skilled labour or commercial trading.
Project Overview:
Preliminary results from the Ugandan national census have shown a growth in population
from 24.2 million in 2002 to 34.8 million in August 2014. The demographic breakdown
indicates that 74.6% of the population is under 24 – highlighting the priority of employment
generation for the country’s large youth population.
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
The SILK project addresses these issues by aiming to improve the expertise of young men
and women in Karamoja, so that they develop transferable, technical and vocational skills,
complemented by life skills training. It is expected that this will help them gain access to
more meaningful employment and better income generating opportunities. As well as that,
we will work with local organisations to strengthen the coordination, effectiveness and
efficiency of existing programmes to ensure that young people have access to vocational
training beyond the end of the project - ensuring long-term sustainability.
Innovation:
This project is particularly innovative by including a life skills training element. Young people
enrolled on the project must complete the Stepping Stones course before beginning literacy
and business skills training. This is based on what we learned from our previous programme;
it looked at how young people from fragile and insecure regions who can be drawn into
conflict can be engaged in livelihoods. Concern used findings from this pioneering research
to inform this project’s design. This programme will provide life skills training to help young
people deal with the effects of conflict and start envisioning better futures for themselves.
Concern Worldwide is the only international organisation engaging in this new approach.
Young people in Lopur village, Moroto district receive beehives as part of the apiculture skills group. This is the
third phase of the vocational skills programme. Mariana Natyang/2015/Uganda
Targeting and Mobilisation:
The programme aims to reach 3,200 marginalised male and female young people in Napak,
Moroto, and Nakapiripirit Districts. These young men and women are drawn from both the
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
urban and rural areas. Because of the high numbers being targeted, new participants will be
divided into seven groups to enter the programme one after another. Following the initial
assessment, each group will be able to avail of the four components, if required. A new
group will enter the programme every two months. By the second month of year two of the
programme, all 3,200 young people will be in the process of undertaking one component of
the programme. The phasing will be done systematically according to geographical location,
category grouping, and planned according to seasonal activities. Care will be taken not to
overwhelm local markets with one or a small group of specific skills, e.g. bicycle repair, or to
intrude on the market area of the trainers themselves.
Key Activities:
Phase 1 – Self-development & Stepping Stones

This initial stage will help young people develop transferable skills to better succeed
in life. The skills include problem solving, goal visualisation, communication, creativity
and leadership. Participants will also take part in the Stepping Stones Approach for a
period of six weeks. This gives young people the opportunity to build self-esteem,
think about their future, assess their potential and analyse opportunities to affect
positive changes in their lives and their communities. The approach involves the
entire community – and is aimed at elders to encourage them to support and
reinforce positive change in the lives of the young people.

This life skill module is designed using the Stepping Stones Approach (SSA)
specifically for Karamoja to suit the lifestyle and attitudes of the Karamojong people.
To contribute to the on-going peace building and conflict resolution processes in the
Karamoja region, SSA has incorporated conflict resolution into the training. This
approach, aimed at behavioural change through guided discussions, gives young
people a safe space in which to discuss their futures and how they could transform
these aspirations into reality. It helps build self-esteem, and throughout the course of
the programme, instructors will provide regular mentoring and monitoring support and
link the groups to skills training and business development partners, micro-finance
institutions, and to government initiatives.
Phase 2 – Building the foundation skills of literacy and numeracy

This component focuses on building foundation literacy and numeracy skills. Low
literacy rates in Karamoja are a major barrier to successfully generating an income
and improving livelihoods - especially for women. In Karamoja, 72.9% of women are
illiterate and lack the basic skills of literacy and numeracy to benefit fully from further
technical or vocational training. This part of the programme aims to raise literacy and
numeracy levels, especially for young women, to help them improve their livelihoods.
The lessons will be conducted in local communities, which is especially important for
women as they have many demands on their time to complete domestic duties.
Classes will normally be held twice a week in each learning centre, but can be
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
reduced to once a week during busy periods such as planting and harvesting
seasons.
Concern instructor, William Nabburi, delivers adult literacy and numeracy training in Nakudep, Nakapiripirit
district. Mariana Natyang/2015/Uganda
Phase 3 – On-farm, off-farm and cross-cutting development skills training

Concern has carried out a number of evaluations into the types of vocational and
non-formal education skills that are appropriate for the region and popular with
participants. Furthermore, the new road into southern Karamoja districts, planned to
be completed by 2015, will open up access to the proposed programme sub-counties
and create new opportunities in the service industries and growth in the trade sector.

The skills which are in demand include on-farm skills such as apiculture, crop
husbandry, livestock production, and off-farm skills such as block making and
construction, leather tanning, carpentry and bicycle repair. Hospitality and retail skills
will be provided to keep pace with the demand generated from the recent and
anticipated continued investment in the area.
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
Phase 4 – Business skills, accessing credit and linking to markets

A large part of young entrepreneurs being able to build their own businesses is
access to credit. This component prepares young people to compete for
entrepreneurship grants and government sponsorship programmes. It also aims to
provide some of the group with skills to help them gain employment in towns and
villages in the district. Concern will engage with employers in the construction and
hospitality sectors to determine their employment criteria, and efforts will be made to
encourage apprenticeships and on-the-job training opportunities. Business skills
trainers will advise young people on how to apply for a job and prepare for interviews.
Trainees will also develop the skills necessary for self-employment such as financial
planning, accounting and cash flow forecasting while also learning how to start up
and grow a small business, alongside sales techniques, communication with
customers and promotion.
Villagers from Kaipetar in Moroto receive tools and seeds for the agronomy skills group as part of the third
phase of the vocational skills programme. Mariana Natyang/2015/Uganda
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
Project Management:
Partners and contractors will monitor the young people during skills training in component
one, to provide guidance or mentorship for any of the young people who encounter
challenges along the way. Literacy and numeracy training will be implemented in close
partnership with Community Development Officers, and skills trainings will be provided by
Concern staff, LNGO (Local Non-Governmental Organisation) partners, formal and nonformal skills trainers and private sector organisations.
Budget:
Item
Unit
Concern Programme Officer (2)
Partner Programme Officer (2)
Research: Advocacy on linking
vocational skills training to the private
sector (2015)
Research: Barriers for Young women
entering productive employment in
Karamoja (2016)
Vocational skills forum
Life skills training
Carpentry group materials
Bicycle repairs tools
Leather tanning materials
Livestock health materials
(stationary, drugs & non-drug items)
Small livestocks training materials
Commercial agricultural commodity
groups training materials
Apiculture training materials
Cross cutting materials
Exchange visits
Project monitoring and evaluation
Month
Month
Study
Period 01/07/2015 –
31/12/2016
No. of Unit Value (in
units GBP)
36
336
36
150
1
4,125
Study
1
4,125
4,125
Meeting
Lumpsum
Lumpsum
Kit
Kit
Kit
3
1
1
22
8
2
294
8,274
1,500
20
110
245
882
8,274
1,500
440
880
490
Kit
Kit
50
70
30
17
1,500
1,190
Lumpsum
Kit
Visit
Lumpsum
1
114
3
2
1,743
11
575
3,000
1,743
1,254
1,725
6,000
Total
Concern Worldwide Harambee Project 2015/2016
July 2015
to Dec 2016
Total Cost
(in GBP)
12,096
5,400
4,125
51,624