I am less than two weeks in to my
new role as country manager of HYT here in Uganda and it’s fair to say that
there is a lot going on. We currently have four projects on the go, two
training projects as part of our One Village at a Time programme funded
by HYT and two projects for other NGOs.
I thought that at this early
stage in my time here I’d take a moment to write about the HYT model - our plan for promoting
sustainable change here in Uganda.
Trainees at 1V6 enjoy a cold drink having completed the new classroom block - their first building!
The first step is training which
really is at the core of what HYT does here. To provide the previously unskilled
with new skills is the first and central part of the HYT model. We choose to
base this training in rural schools
such that the buildings built by HYT’s
trainees are able to serve the local community and help to educate the next
generation of Ugandans. The second and most challenging aspect of the model is to try and provide former trainees,
now fully trained masons, with employment for the long term. Our current method
of doing this is by no means perfect – we simply try to bring in work on the social enterprise
side of the HYT’s operations. By winning contracts to build anything from water
tanks to schools we are able to employ our masons for up to 6 months at a time
and provide stability of income to them and their families. The reason I say
that this is not perfect is that it relies on a certain growth of our
operations to provide employment for an increasingly large
number trained 1V graduates.
The team of 1V graduates who are building two new latrines at Mutai SS for the Jinja Educational Trust
The model has already achieved some successes
in its current form and it is my
belief that HYT can and will continue to grow to provide employment for these
men for the foreseeable future. We have an excellent project management
structure in place, led by our Operations Manager, Philip Yiga and we are
continuing to learn from, by being critical of, all that we have done so far.
Diversification of our services will help us here:
it is employment that is the end goal and so the sphere within which we can use
our ISSB knowledge to generate it, is limited only by our imagination.
It is my hope that HYT will be a
leading part of the changing of attitudes towards ISSB and the avoidance of
using wood to fire bricks here in Uganda. With our expertise we are able to
show that the benefits of the technology far outweigh the benefits of the
current materials and with that will come an acceptance of it and employment
opportunities for all of HYT’s graduates both current and future.
I am so looking forward to my
time here in Jinja – if the last two weeks are anything to go by, it’s going to be quite an experience!
Marcus