Private initiative is the key driver for Uganda’s socioeconomic development

COBATI – WHERE THE VISION OF ONE PROVIDES VISION FOR MANY

(Posted 01st March 2015)

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When Maria Baryamujura during the week shared updates from her latest venture, it dawned on me that I have known this industrious lady for several decades now, and from day one was community tourism part of her vocabulary, part of her calling and part of her professional life. An Ashoka Fellow since 2006 and recipient of the African Diaspora Award in 2013 has her work been recognized abroad as much as at home in Uganda, where she today ranks among the key role models for young girls and women who aspire to take their rightful place, one which African ‘customs’ only too often try to deny them.

I have in the past written about various of her ventures, including her affiliation with the Bombo based Nubian Women Cooperative where former refugees have integrated into Ugandan society and with Maria’s help and guidance formed a business model under which they produce baskets and other handicraft which have since won global acclaim.

(Maria seen here showing one of the unique bags made by the Nubian Women Cooperative)

COBATI’s latest venture however is arguably the biggest of her long and distinguished career, when recently she opened a training centre near her hometown of Mbarara in South Western Uganda. The centre aspires to give trainees life skills and admits young people of both genders to equip them to become productive members of society and where not finding formal employment become entrepreneurs by starting their own small businesses.

Said Maria when passing the information and asked about the centre’s role and purpose: ‘The COBATI Training Center is my humble intervention. I aspire to witness the Center generate groups of skilled women and youths capable of producing quality products and providing quality services through their own small businesses across rural Uganda. The goal is to mentor rural women, village girls, and boys to use their hands, tap into their indigenous skills and the surrounding environment to create their own work.’

93 pioneer trainees were recently graduating from their courses, which include a range of practical applications like housekeeping and home-running, hygiene and sanitation awareness, home care for the elderly, cross cultural exchange etiquette, homestead and farm tourism, basic record keeping and group saving, backyard garden farming, handicraft, and customer care service.

While no doubt congratulations are in order for the graduates is my focus today on Maria whose vision to improve life for the girl child, and boys for that matter, in the rural areas of her home region and across Uganda as a whole, just has to be recognized for the contributions she has made over the decades. Compassionate grass root tourism is and has been in her blood ever since I met her first and her latest venture is living proof that she does not sit on her laurels but continues to seek ways and means to help Uganda’s youth to build a future free of poverty. For more information about COBATI click on www.cobatiuganda.org