One of the challenges this country has is the disparity in terms of available jobs against the number of youths and this has created a lot of unemployment or underemployment among the young people. The youth in my area may have the creativity to innovate but lack the confidence to start, pushing them in other unsolicited behaviors like drug abuse, bad sexual activities that some get addicted to which further leads them away from a right path they should have taken had if they had the right guidance and motivation – highlights ; a local leader (LC5) of Iganga District where the Iganga Youth Day event takes place annually.

From his perspective as a leader he acknowledged that the event has been a big contributor to uplifting the confidence of the youths staying in Iganga as it brings different young people across the country to share inspiration, ideas and network with the ones they met in Iganga. Despite the fact that while many of them lack the capital to start their own initiatives, they have picked confidence, good networks and basic skills through the various learning experiences and entrepreneurial interactions incorporated within the activities that happen on Iganga Youth Day. Mr. Kayemba also appreciated Hangout Foundation for the efforts and all the investments they have incurred in making the event happen annually for the past 3 years since 2016.

I give a plus to the organizers of the event who have continuously put in efforts to bring Iganga Youth Day to my community and emphasized the sharing of start-up success stories, preaching the message of self-belief and confidence has played a big role in making the young people I lead to have hope that they can also be successful in whatever they believe in doing.

He then informed us that earlier on, very many young people would just redundantly refuse to do anything beneficial to their communities. They never had any motivation to collectively do a social cause for the good of those in their particular society and when the first Iganga Youth Day happened, very many youths were mobilized to participate in Iganga town cleaning. The exercise put together local leaders like Mr. Patrick the LC5 of the area, company owners, media personalities and young people that showed up for the event. He also mentioned that not only was it fun, it also opened the eyes and confidence of the young people in Iganga to start such activities that contribute to the good of the community. At the moment, so many youth groups have come into existence as a result of Iganga Youth day and they are continuously on the look out to be impactful in the area. “As a leader, I count that as an accomplishment for ever allowing to be part of Iganga Youth day and continuously allowing the event to be in an area I lead,” concludes Mr. Patrick.

We later informed him that this year 2019; we are looking towards creating sustainability in the impact we are creating by working towards doing long-term projects that equip young people with practical and soft skills through capacity building especially in the area of Leadership, Entrepreneurship and personal development. Upon hearing this, Mr. Kayemba Patrick pledged out of being very impressed with the idea to always be of support as much as he can.