Young men and women in Aweil to benefit from three-month vocational training

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Women baking at a vocational training course offered by UNMISS in Aweil. Photos: Emmanuel Kele/UNMISS

16 Apr 2021

Young men and women in Aweil to benefit from three-month vocational training

Emmanuel Kele

Forty young men and women in Aweil have been given a chance to benefit from a three-month-long vocational training offered by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. Entrepreneurship and small-scale business management is on the agenda, as is carpentry and baking.

“I have never known how to bake anything, but now, after a month here, I can make both bread and cakes for my family instead of buying them at the market,” says an enthusiastic Josephine Anger, who is already considering the option of opening a home-based bakery.

It is easy to see why: despite relative peace and stability, youth unemployment is rife in Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal State, with many idle and vulnerable young men and women opting to either move to neighbouring Sudan or engage in criminal activities.

John Makak, a beneficiary of the vocational training, has other plans.

“I am learning carpentry. After completing the course, I will help my community by producing wooden chairs and beds and anything else that is needed,” says the 30-year-old.

A general lack of educational opportunities means that most youth in the state are not computer literate or skilled in any other marketable way. It means that youth in the state not only find it difficult to land jobs but also to open their own businesses.

Asunta, another trainee, wants to do something about this dire reality.

 “After this course, I want to become a trainer who can teach my fellow youths how to go about creating employment for themselves,” she says.

Floods having destroyed many crops in the region is further aggravating the bleak labour market. Failed harvests also led to scarcity, sharply increasing commodity prices and significant food insecurity.

“Not having enough to eat is a challenge for our students as well, so it is good that they can at least enjoy some of the bread they are making here,” says William Wek, Project Manager at the vocational training centre.

By equipping youths for the labour market, the vocational training project, costing approximately 40,000 dollars, ultimately aims at preventing conflicts caused by a lack of resources, involuntary idleness, or both. A “peace dividend”, in the words of Thomas Mtaisi, a Relief, Reintegration and Protection Officer working for the peacekeeping mission.

“They [the trainees] will go home with a kind of ‘starter pack’ which will help them to start a business and get rolling. We feel that this way, the youth get to enjoy the dividends of peace,” he says.

Should this pilot project prove successful, the UN peacekeeping mission might try to replicate it in other parts of South Sudan.