Vocational training is a powerful tool to reduce unemployment and poverty in East Africa. One Heart provides skills training options alongside our Academy schools program. It is a very tangible and practical way to ensure all of the children of One Heart are given a hand up, not just a handout.
Many children who live in poverty are late to enrol in primary school or miss out entirely. Children who fail to attain a certain academic standard at primary level are not allowed to attend secondary school. They then often find themselves without the skills that make them employable, limiting their opportunities to provide a living for their families.
Vocational training provides a different pathway to employment for individuals, and creates a skills market in the region, stimulating economic growth.
One Heart currently has Skills Training Centre Hubs in Uganda and Kenya. They are multi-purpose facilities with large training rooms, office spaces and administration areas.
The Kenyan centre incorporates a commercial kitchen and bakery for training in catering, while the nearby guesthouse provides training in accommodation. Both facilities have adjoining farms to conduct agricultural training and hands-on practice.
The Ugandan centre was constructed in 2023. A number of students who had received vocational training were proudly able to contribute to the build with skills that were relevant to their trades.
The One Heart Skills Training Centres will run courses that are contextually relevant to the area in which they exist. These may include trades such as welding, carpentry, plumbing and electrical; sewing and fashion design, hairdressing and cosmetics; as well as agricultural studies, baking, accommodation and catering, and event management.
The skills training centre in Uganda was funded by Listen to Your Body Williamstown who conducted a fitness challenge to raise funds; while the centre in Kenya was funded by the Jared Dunscomb Foundation, who held a number of events to raise the money and awareness of One Heart’s work.
Your donation will go directly to raising happy, healthy kids and providing a pathways to a better life.
Poverty is an unfathomably large challenge, but it only takes $55 a month to change the course of one person's life forever.
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