AVSI injects Shs 73mln for agribusiness in Lira school
LIRA– The Association of Volunteers International Services [AVSI] a not-for-profit organisation based in Italy, has signed a pact with St Katherine Girls Secondary School in Lira City to skills students in agribusiness.
The school signed a memorandum of understanding with the Italian organisation to implement Shs 73 million projects, with particular emphasis on skilling the young people in agribusiness.
“We signed a memorandum of understanding with them where the project requires Shs 73mln but they will give us Shs 43mln per year,” said Rose Nangwala Nakwagala, the school’s headteacher.
The project that runs for four years should have started in 2021 but was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic that forced government to enforce a lockdown that saw 15 million learners in the country stayed at home.
Nakwagala said they have started with 200 students. More students, she said, will join the programme in the next three years as the project targets students below 18 years.
The project dubbed, Skilling in Agripreneurship for increased Youth Employment [SAY] started way back in 2015 and a number of students have benefitted and been awarded certificates in agribusiness.
“The projects are all economics in nature. We have mushroom growing, poultry farming, vegetable gardening, nursery tree planting, sheep and cattle rearing among others,” Nakwagala said.
The school has three acres of demonstration gardens within its environment and 10 acres of farmland at Akia Ward in Lira City West Division.
Nakwagala said the project is good because it’s molding students with agribusiness skills and be able to create their own jobs after their studies.
“We started these projects way back seven years ago with mushroom growing that won us a heifer at an exhibition at Gayaza farm camp in Kampala,” she added.
In another development, Kakwagala said some students from the school have benefited from African Girls Can sponsorship scheme and admitted to different institutions of higher learning.
She identified some of the beneficiaries as; the students as Flavia Adong admitted at Makerere University, Acen Vivian [Uganda Technical College Lira], Apili Patricia [Uganda Technical College Kiryandongo], Amera Winnie, [Good Samaritan Nursing School], Aryemo Rebecca and Apio Nacy.
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