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Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Former Lords Resistance Abductees have received free training on fish farming and entrepreneurial skills.
The six months training was conducted from the Community Aquaculture School Gulu, located at Isidoro Farm in Negri Village, Bardege-Layibi Division in Gulu City. The students were assessed and validated by a team of experts from the department of assessment and certification of the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT).
The other beneficiaries include child mothers and widows aged between 15 and 35 years from the various districts of Acholi and parts of Lango Sub Regions both literate and illiterate.
They underwent six months of intensive training on theory and hands-on skills training on fish pond construction and stocking, duration of fish maturity, feeding, disease and pests controls, types of quality water parameter for fish growth, making fish feeds and harvest period as well as value addition.
They also received entrepreneurial and business skills like records keeping, customer care, money-saving, product pricing and market sourcing among others.
The training conducted under the Building Skills and Aquaculture for Jobs Project was funded by Caritas Norway at 800 Million Shillings and implemented by Gulu Archdiocese through Caritas Gulu with technical support from the department of fisheries at Makerere University and Gulu Archdiocese.
Christopher Olenge, the Project Coordinator says that the five-year project which now ends this year seeks to create employment among the youth and vulnerable people, create financial independence through the sale of products as well hiring of expertise.
He added that the project also seeks to promote fish farming in the Acholi Sub Region instead of relying on fish and its products from the neighbouring districts yet they can be made locally from within.
John Bosco Komakech Aludi, the Director Caritas Gulu disclosed that the trainees will receive start-up capitals of 200,000 Shillings, 400 fingerlings and rudimentary tools for fish pond construction and maintenance.
He disclosed that these current trainees now bring to 412 the total number of beneficiaries under the project in the last five years.
Akiiba Batalinga, a senior qualification officer in assessment and qualification and charge for development for DIT said that the beneficiaries received high-class skills which are practically workable and good to address the job scarcity in the country.
Twenty-four-year-old Jacqueline Angee Nile, from Lamwo, said that she is now unable to construct fish ponds and make fish feeds as well as start-up a business from fish farming.
Daniel Watmon from Amalac Fish Farming Project in Omoro district says he now knows how to make a good fish pond, stock and many other things that involve fish farming. He is now ready to make his group prosper and wants to become a leading fish farmer and supplier in Omoro district.
Eighteen-year-old Rebecca Lamwaka Joska from Amuru district says she intends to become self-employed through fish farming and supply fish in her home district.
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