Ugandan and European partners, have officially Kicked Off GreenVET4U – a 3-year project worth 400,000 EUR, co-funded by the European Commission.
The launch brought together six organizations from Uganda and the EU member states of Spain, Germany and Italy to promote green jobs in the field of vocational education and training.
The project will help build the capacity of vocational education and training (VET) practitioners and employers in Uganda to support the design and delivery of innovative curricula in Skills for Green Jobs.
The project will also focus on empowering the way the labour market develops skills across the country.
Jesus Boyano, from INFODEF, coordinators of the project, thanked the European Commission for making the collaboration happen through capacity building and vocational education and training project.
He revealed that Green Jobs are the future, not only in Uganda, but the whole world.
He noted that through the three years journey, there will be collaborative learning and defining solutions that are helpful for Uganda.
On his part, Dr. Richard Irumba, deputy director for the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) said the project is about building capacity in the delivery of green jobs in their country.
“The different partners are coming together to bring together their and expertise the experience so that we deliver a good curriculum which can help us to build a capacity for growing jobs for purposes of sustainability in our country,” he said.
He noted that their role is to participate and guide the process of the curriculum development for GreenVET jobs.
Meanwhile, Prof Moses Muhwezi, the acting principal of Makerere University Business School, said the project is about having green jobs produced.
“That’s what we do, the way we teach entrepreneurship, the curriculum, is to aim at having green jobs. We are bothered about the environment, we are bothered about sustainability, and since entrepreneurs and business, these elements take a greater percentage of activities in the country, in the economy,” he said.
Patricia Lamour, MD Aspire Education Group in Germany, noted that the project is a three -year EU project and it’s aimed to build the capacity of vocational education trainers in Uganda, to support the design and delivery of innovative curricula in skills for green jobs.
“Even though it took us a year to get this far, in order for us to come this far, we, Aspire, have been coming here for the last six years. And through that work that we’ve been doing where we’re investing in building trusted relationships, we came to know Great Lakes Safari, we came to know MUBS and we came to know NCDC, so that when we had this project, we were able to bring together our Ugandan partners so that they can also access resources, information and expertise from Europe,” she said.
Project Alliance
The project has gathered an alliance of six partner organisations active in the field of VET from Uganda and the EU Member States of Spain, Germany and Italy.
The Ugandan partners include the National Curriculum Development Centre, Great Lakes Safari and Makerere University Business School.
The European partners include INFODEF, Spain the project coordinator, CSF Italy and Aspire Education Group Germany.
Expected Outcomes
An EU-Uganda Community of Practice will be set up, involving an extensive network of private-public stakeholders.
A virtual collaborative space and innovation lab will be created to support the activity of the Community of Practice. Okay