Edoovillage #1658 - Uganda, Bwera: Van Merode Skills Training College

Van Merode College was founded in 2014 and formally registered in 2016 as a non-profit organization and its official overall goal is: 'empowerment of jobless and poor rural youth with vocational skills for a better life'. We are a skills training centre for improved livelihoods among jobless rural youth.
The college is located in the border town of Mpondwe-Lhubiriha (or Bwera), the fastest growing part of the county where the population is predominantly an agricultural one (unskilled) back-ground not ready to enter into the labour market that requires specific skills. A substantial part of the population lives in absolute poverty, with high HIV-infection figures, high unemployment among the youth, many child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
What are the goals?
Van Merode College was established as an urgent response to empower the rural vulnerable youth who were jobless, mainly women and girls whose survival was at risk due to marginalization by the government and the local community leaders. The purpose of the project is to equip these vulnerable groups with the right skills that would enable them get jobs but also create jobs.
What are you going to do with the laptops?
The Labdoo laptops will boost our college to meet the huge demand for computer literacy not only for our students but the entire community members who are yearning to become computer literate in order to break barriers of modern means of communication. In this community, computer skills is still a thing for very few privileged persons.
We shall use the laptops to set up a community internet service provision to enable the local community members have full or reliable access to the Global realities, hence, bridging and reducing the global divide.
Empowering the rural population with relevant and most needed information from the educational packages of Labdoo, hence, reducing the global divide. We believe that information is power and empowers communities.
We shall use the laptops to offer basic literacy skills to children from the neighboring primary and high schools during weekends and holidays. <>
How many teachers and pupils do you have?
Presently we have 125 students with 17 staff members.
How do you plan to train your teachers?
We shall train our staff in shifts especially during the weekends, evening and break times. We have 3 teachers of computer skills who have volunteered to lead the project.
How will you maintain your laptops?
We have a safe and permanent store cupboards with lockers to safeguard the laptops. We shall maintain the laptops from the user fees. Two computer teachers shall be responsible to maintain the laptops.
If you have a website, could you send it to us?
1. https://web.facebook.com/vamcastbweracollege/
2. http://ekisande.com/?lang=en