Boosting Employability of Tourism Staff in Karamoja

Are you a tourism or hospitality business in Uganda’s Karamoja sub-region? and would you like to improve the skills of your staff? Then we have an exciting opportunity for you!

The Ukarimu Employability Training project

Background and objectives

Uganda’s youth often struggle to find meaningful employment to better their lives, while the growing Uganda tourism sector demands quality training that delivers a skilled labour force. There is a continuous need to train and develop local talent to ensure that tourism and hospitality businesses are professionally operated, maintained, and managed.

With funding from the Embassy of France in Uganda, EyeOpener Initiative and Kara-Tunga Foundation are partnering to implement the Ukarimu Employability Training project in Northeastern Uganda. The project aims to improve employability of staff in the tourism and hospitality sector by:

• Boosting the skills of youth in Northeastern Uganda, especially women, employed in green tourism and hospitality jobs.
• Providing high quality and market-relevant skills training for Uganda’s youth through an open source curriculum developed and implemented in collaboration with clusters of hotels, lodges and tour operators.
• Improving decent, green and inclusive business practices in the tourism and hospitality sector in Uganda.

Project facts

• Implementation period of 1,5 years.
• Development and implementation of 6 training sessions (2-3 days each), tailored to the needs of tourism and hospitality businesses.
• Training 150 young people employed in tourism and hospitality (mostly women) to enhance their employability.
• In partnership with at least 16 tourism and hospitality businesses in Northeastern Uganda.

Key project activities

Co-creation session

• Representatives of tourism businesses (min. 16) within the region participate in a co-creation workshop to support the development of the employability skills training sessions.
• During the co-creation, the representatives discuss skills gaps and training

Module development

• Based on the identified topics during the co-creation session, the Ukarimu team will develop 6 training modules based on principles of active and skills-based learning.
• All modules are freely accessible: participating tourism businesses can use the curricula – and existing Ukarimu training content – to organise in-house training, next to the training sessions that are part of the project.

Employability training sessions

• Throughout the project implementation period, the Ukarimu team will host 6 training sessions on the identified topics, with emphasis on green and inclusive business practices included in all training sessions.
• Over the course of the project, there will be 3 training cycles, each offering 2 training sessions.
• The training sessions will take place at a central location, and last 2-3 days each.
• Each training session can accommodate up to 25 participants. All participants are selected staff members of the participating tourism and hospitality businesses.
• Training participants will be provided with accommodation for the duration of the training, after which they will return to their places of work.

Progress meetings

Each of the 3 training cycles will be preempted by a progress meeting. During these progress meetings, the Ukarimu team and the project partners will 1) reflect on the training sessions, 2) fine tune the upcoming training cycle, 3) evaluate the partnership and employability of the trained staff members.

About Ukarimu

The Ukarimu curriculum is the first open-source curriculum for tourism and hospitality training in Africa. The Ukarimu training programme bridges the existing skills gap by prioritising the needs of tourism and hospitality businesses. Through co-creation sessions and continuous interaction with the private sector, Ukarimu develops and implements skills-based training programmes that improve the employability of tourism and hospitality staff.

About the implementing partners

EyeOpener Initiative (EOI) is one of the founding partners of Ukarimu and a leading innovator for skilling and job creation for young Ugandans in tourism and hospitality. EOI is the project coordinator and the lead partner for the curriculum development of the Ukarimu Employability Training project.

Kara-Tunga Foundation (KTF) is a frontrunner for sustainable tourism development in the Karamoja region and founder of Karamoja Tourism Academy, which also uses the Ukarimu curriculum. KTF plays an important role in mobilising partners of this project due to their established networks within the region, and tourism development initiatives such as the Warrior Nomad Trail.

The project is funded by the Embassy of France in Uganda.