Soroti Workshop
Generally Soroti town in Uganda accommodates mostly internally displaced refugees who had run away from the Lord’s Army in northern Uganda and those who had been displaced by the Karimonja cattle rustlers in the 1980’s and 1990’s. With the high unemployment rate and overwhelming poverty among the local residents, a skills training program to the local youths in carpentry skills with a local carpentry trainer was started in 2014. True Grasses has been involved in this workshop since the beginning and has been overseeing the work done. Since early this year (feb 2016), the centre now runs completely under the NGO; it is now called Soroti Youth Skills Centre. The centre equips youths with woodwork skills, business and enterprenuer skills for one year and after graduation they can start their own wood workshops or be employed in the local community as carpenters.
In april the centre received a donation of 1000 kW of solar panels from Ernst and friends group in Switzerland to run the workshop machines and the centre. This group has been sponsoring this specific project since the beginning.
The centre boosts of a well-equipped wood work shop powered by solar power and has its own timber sales yard. The centre now produces quality and high standard furniture for sale produced by the trainees and this has turned the centre to be self-reliant. The trainees are offered free training and after graduation, they are required to volunteer to train others at the workshop for another three months before they move on.
Please see the pictures of the solar panels being installed plus the trainees at work!
