Members of the Jinja city’s security committee and politicians alike have tasked ghetto youths to embrace self-help projects and shun criminality.
Over 200 ghetto youths leaders sourced from the Jinja city’s major slums of Danida, Soweto, Kikalamoja, Budhumbuli and Rock, expressed willingness of their members to shun criminality, but they were only delayed by lack of standard rehabilitation facilities and startup capital to rebuild their lives.
Their engagement followed a spate of police crackdowns in the different slums across Jinja city, where youths are endlessly arrested and reprimanded over pickpocketing, aggravated robbery, drug abuse, murder, rape, defilement, among other related crimes.
While addressing the youth who converged at the Walukuba freedom square grounds, the deputy resident city commissioner in charge of southern division, Mike Segawa said that, their act of mobilizing the youths into meaningful living, is a buildup on the ongoing presidential initiatives to skill ghetto youths across the country.
Segawa argues that such initiatives keep the youths engaged in purpose driven employment, which deters them from constant survival on criminality.
Ssegawa also noted that they are coordinating with officials in charge of the presidential youth skilling initiative, to ensure that Jinja city ghetto youths are equally enrolled and granted an opportunity of bettering their livelihoods.
The youths agreed to team up with local leaders and security personnel in the quest of bursting existing criminal gangs but they challenged responsible government agencies to spearhead efforts of fostering their financial inclusion.
Aziz Lubega, the chairperson of Ghetto youths in Jinja city said that, most of them are currently grown-up men with dreams of excelling in life and no longer view crime as a survival option.
Lubega said that he is currently a family man with school going children and he is working towards engaging in meaningful money generating activities like second hand cloth vending, but he is limited by lack of operational capital.
Proscovia Atim said that she has been surviving on prostitution and coordinating aggravated robberies for male gang members for the past five years.
Atim however, expresses embarrassment over her means of earning a living and she wants potential well-wishers to support her cause of starting up a retail business. “I am not proud about how I make a living and I am willing to live better, Incase there is anyone willing to fund my dream of setting up a retail beverages shop business in our locality,” Atim said.
Francois Tuuse, said that she has been engaged in the illegal sale of marijuana after fleeing from home over disagreements with her stepmother. “This life of selling illicit drugs for survival is killing me every day, but I am hopeful that good Samaritans will at one time rescue us from this situation,” Tuuse said.
Tuuse added that several street children under the age of 10 have been recruited in the trade as a means of earning incomes for their shelter masters and also purchase daily meals.
David Bakibinga said that several ghetto youths have been acquiring soft skills in shoe making, tailoring and bakery, however, they waste away in despair due to lack of the necessary funds required in setting personal businesses.
Bakibinga argued that, government officials should conduct surveys and set up cottage industries in each of the slums, which will avail disgruntled youths with meaningful employment and deter them from engaging in criminality.
Meanwhile, the Jinja South East ward male councilor, Richard Mbazira, said that these youths carry the potential of contributing to the country’s economy, through both direct workforce as casual labourers to the already existing factories and potential taxpayers after acquiring employment.
Mbazira further said that he is planning to draft a proposal, mandating the Jinja city council authorities, to allocate land and funds where these reformed youths can easily set up cottage industries, to better their livelihoods.
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