Women's Initiatives
Our Women Initiatives Project offers free vocational training, business mentoring and resources for women who are currently unskilled and unemployed. The Skills for Life project grew from a decade of work with women in the slums through our community-driven Women’s Initiative Groups. These are groups of women who meet to share skills and develop income-generating projects.
The Project
.Many women desired to learn professional tailoring and/or knitting skills that would enable them to start up their own businesses, and following close consultation with the Women’s Initiative Groups and the wider community, we developed the Skills for Life training project. The project takes place in our specifically built training facility, the Hope Centre in Naguru. Our tailoring and knitting courses run for four months and we run three intakes a year. Each year we aim to help 200 unemployed and unskilled women graduate.
When women graduate from our project they receive an official government recognised qualification in the form of a certificate accredited by Uganda’s Directorate of Industrial Training, and the required start-up equipment from Kids Club Kampala, for example sewing or knitting machines. This enables them to either start their own businesses or find employment with tailoring businesses in the city, creating access to a sustainable livelihood and lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
The context
In 2021 unemployment in Uganda rose to 12% (ubos). For those who work in Kampala’s slums, especially women, they mostly rely on informal and unskilled labour (for example washing clothes, informal food stalls or selling produce at the market), as they do not have the skills needed for formal employment or to start their own business.
It is thought 81% of women work in vulnerable employment, with no safety nets against economic shocks, this increases their chances of staying in poverty (the world bank, 2021). From our community-based work with women in the slums for over a decade, we noticed women had the desire to learn professional skills that would enable them to gain employment, but they didn’t have the resources. This is how the Skills for Life project started.
Our Impact
The skills for life project has helped over a 1000 women gain vital skills to gain employment or start their own businesses. Each year 200 women enrol onto our course and gain professional and business skills. In the long term our efforts help women provide for themselves and their families by enabling them to earn a sustainable income and improve their economic resilience.
Polly's Story
Polly joined the Women’s Skills Empowerment Project in May 2022 and now runs her own successful business. She says “I wasn’t getting enough money to sustain my family. Therefore, I decided to learn tailoring skills so that I can have a source of income. I am proud that I now earn good money that helps me look after my family. I can earn 250,000 UGX (approx. £60) and above from tailoring every month. I am grateful that my tailoring business means I can now provide for my family and even send my children to school.”
Annet's Story
Annet graduated from the project in December 2022: “I came to know about the tailoring project through the community radio in our area. My parents couldn’t afford for me to finish school so I decided to join the skilling project to give me something useful to do and gain a new skill to learn. I can’t wait to start running my own business. My favourite part of my tailoring journey is that now I can sew something beautiful on my own like this dress that I am putting on. I have also made new friends through this course. A huge thank you to Kids Club Kampala for this opportunity.”
The Kids Club Kampala Way
Why we’re different
Our Skilling Programme is part of the way we are uniquely supporting children in Kampala slums survive and thrive.
At Kids Club Kampala, we believe that every child is unique, special and deserves to have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Our work is based on a holistic approach, where we focus on meeting the immediate needs of children and families in the slums while empowering them to bring about long-term, sustainable changes in their lives. Our approach encompasses four core project areas: feeding, protecting, educating, and skilling.
These four areas are not siloed; they work together holistically to create a supportive environment for vulnerable children and their families. We firmly believe in a holistic approach, ensuring that children and families have their basic needs met (food, safety) so they can fully engage with and benefit from education and skills development. This approach helps them move from merely surviving to truly thriving, as stated in our theory of change.