By Shamim Saad
KAMPALA – About 1000 students from different universities in the country will be equipped with both entrepreneurial and financial literacy skills in the next two years.
According to Team Lead, Financial Education Academy (FEA), Munduru Mwajuma, the move aims at teaching students very important life skills to prepare them for life after campus.
“We are a social enterprise, who do capacity building by teaching people financial literacy. We have embarked on training youth, especially university students with financial literacy skills because it is something that we, in Africa, have been missing,” she said.
She added, “By conducting such training at universities, we want the time students move out of their initial education cycle and are able to earn money and manage their finances not only to sustain themselves but also be in a position to create employment opportunities for their fellow students and other people with a mindset of wealth creation,” Mwajuma explained.
She further stated that they came up with a simple and easily understandable approach for the youth and students to appreciate and build self-sustainable lives without being dependents on their parents after graduating from the universities.
Mwajuma was speaking at the International University of East Africa (IUEA) in Kansanga, Kampala during the launch of the FEA program dubbed “The Campus Version” under the theme: “Unleashing Your Financial Entrepreneurial Potential to Building Sustainable Wealth” on Tuesday May 16, 2023.
According to the Uganda National Labour Force survey, conducted in 2021, at least 41% of youth, representing 9.3m aged between 18 and 30, are not engaged in any productive activity.
The findings compiled by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), indicate that the 9.3m youth are in neither education, employment nor receiving training.
Youth employment remains a serious challenge to Uganda, which has forced the government to concede that the level of the country’s growth was not matching up with job creation.
About 300 students were taken through the basics of managing their finances, and how to set up enterprises that are also going to employ other people and live sustainable livelihoods.
She said they are working with other partners like the Flourishing Entrepreneurial Lifestyle (FELS), which is a movement based on 10 pillars that shape the idea of financial literacy and these pillars include; ideation and creation, self-discovery and movement continuous learning, following technology trends and travel and exploration.
Other tools include; having healthy habits, an open balanced mindset, using the right tools, and having diverse hobbies and activities.
The Programs Officer, Financial Education Academy, Sheila Atukunda, urged students to create their own employment instead of waiting for white-collar jobs.
“Instead of completing university and you wait for a white collar job, we are here to change your mindset to create your own job and employ your fellow youth or other people,”
Atukunda added, “Starting small now, will elevate you from poverty. Do not be like some workers who believe in the end-of-month salary. When you meet him/her they will tell you the month has not ended, they cannot do anything or survive if the month has not ended,” she warned.
She stressed that the youth need to stop lamenting about government not providing them with jobs but rather being different, empowered, and building sustainable livelihoods and wealth creation.
Atukunda called upon different stakeholders to come on board, stand with them, and support them in the work they are doing.
Appreciation
The Guild President, IUEA Nathan Mubembe, lauded the FEA for choosing to launch the program at their university and for skilling them with financial literacy skills.
“On behalf of the students, I would love to thank the team for coming up with such insightful content that is going to shape student as far as handling finances are concerned. This has been long overdue, it is what we have been longing for as you know, university students need to think out of the box and diverse means to stop depending on their parents, make their own money, and earn a living,” he said
Mr IUEA and a Petroleum Engineering Student, Herman Kanut said, “This training is timely and he is happy that the training will help him start a small business which will improve his lifestyle.”
