UREPP on the Fast Track

Despite pandemic-related restrictions, UREPP (Uganda Refugee Employment Promotion Project - Bina Uganda) has been very well received and has already achieved its first successes. Out of over three thousand applications, 380 participants were selected for the first cohort.

While the current lockdown in Uganda means that classes at one of the three partner schools will have to be suspended until the end of July, the courses at the other two have already been completed.

Within a very short period of time, the quality of the teaching and the motivation of the UREPP trainees has been demonstrated. All of the national certification exams conducted so far have been passed, some of them even with top scores. Just how good and highly motivated some students in particular are is demonstrated by the example of Alice, a young mother who was one of the few women to start training in the construction industry at Kiryandongo Technical Institute.

After only a short time, her talent became apparent and she was able to leave all the others behind her in internal school competitions, even though most of the participants had already completed a year of training. The same picture was seen just a few weeks later when Alice beat out 25 other applicants from all over northern Uganda and will now represent Kiryandongo Technical Institute and UREPP at the national competitions. All this after only three months of training.