Busoga boosted with vocational skilling equipment

_________________

JINJA – Busoga Kingdom-based Kyabazinga Initiative Teenage Centre has received a boost of vocational skilling equipment. The move is an attempt at boosting digital skills training for young people, especially teenage mothers.

The donation includes 10 computers with one-year Internet subscriptions, eight tailoring machines, 10 hair-dressing kits, and water-harvesting tanks to support kitchen gardening initiatives.

The intervention by MTN Uganda staff and partners aims to enhance digital literacy and create income-generating opportunities for teenage mothers and young women, while also improving household food security within the region.

The support, part of MTN’s annual 21 Days of Y’ello Care volunteerism campaign, was received by the kingdom’s second deputy premier, Alhaji Osman Noor Ahmed on behalf of the King at the Kingdom headquarters in Bugembe, Jinja city on June 17, 2025.

Busoga Kingdom's 2nd deputy prime minister Osman Noor Ahmed (right) shakes hands with Juliet Nsubuga (2nd right), the Managing Director of Bayobab Uganda, an MTN Uganda affiliate. (Photo by Donald Kiirya)

Ahmed was accompanied by Kyabazinga affairs minister Yudaya Babirye, kingdom gender minister Florence Kafuko and members of the Kyabazinga Initiatives, among others.

Ahmed conveyed greetings from Kyabazinga William Gabula Nadiope IV and his wife, Inhebantu (queen) Jovia Mutesi.

According to Ahmed, the donation was in line with the King’s initiative of leading the fight to end teenage pregnancies in Busoga through his ‘Abasadha n’empango’— ‘Men are the Pillars’ campaign.

He informed the gathering that recently the Kyabazinga was appointed the United Nations Goodwill ambassador to lead the fight and end teenage pregnancies in Busoga region and Uganda at large.

He elaborated that the equipment donated will help the kingdom to skill the teenage mothers who have dropped out of school so that they feel not neglected and that they have already refurbished a structure where they will put the computers, sewing machines and other equipment that will help to skill the teenage mothers for their future.

Babirye said teenage pregnancy is a global crisis, 'it's not only in Busoga adding that there are many children getting pregnant and becoming fathers and mothers at the wrong time. This is not good for a nation in terms of development and in Uganda we are badly off'.

“Busoga is second to Bukedi region whereby the National figures are 24% but here it is 28% and Bukedi is 29% meaning that every 10 girls, three of them get pregnant before they turn 20,” she said, adding that the intervention is to both prevent and also empower those who have become victims.

Juliet Kakayi Nsubuga, the managing director of Bayobab Uganda, an MTN Uganda affiliate, said the donation is to help teenage mothers to get into the income generating opportunities.

“To teenage mothers, the support is to help you get to learn so that you are empowered but it is not to encourage you to encourage more teenage mothers. As you learn, as you get empowered, please pass on the message to other girls ‘that do not come where I have been’ learn, finish your education, get skilled, get a job and then you will have the children and raise them for a better tomorrow,” Nsubuga elaborated.

This is the second time Busoga has benefitted from MTN’s Y’ello Care campaign. In 2016, MTN donated 20 computers to the Inhebantu Skilling and ICT Centre, resources that have since helped equip thousands of learners with essential digital skills.

MTN Uganda’s female staff also took part in a football match with teenage mothers and later engaged Busoga Kingdom officials in a tree-planting drive, with over 100 trees planted at the kingdom headquarters.

The campaign, worth shillings 500 million, is being implemented in partnership with various organisations including the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, MTN Mobile Money Uganda Ltd, Bayobab, Maendeleo Foundation, AYO Uganda, Roofings Group, Transsion, Xeno Investment, and AYO.