Solomon and James met in 2008, working as mentors for young leaders and entrepreneurs in secondary schools. In the due course of their work, they noticed that their local communities had an under-addressed problem. Every time they walked around their childhood villages, they were struck by the high school dropout rates, unemployment, and meager incomes of youth. This was the life their parents had lived, and if nothing changed, it is the life their children will most likely live. Thousands of youths drop out of the formal school system annually and they could have been one of them.
Wezesha means “to enable” in Swahili language. Founded as a peer youth volunteer initiative in 2010, Wezesha Impact is a registered not for profit organization that started operating fully in 2014. Since then, Wezesha Impact has been dedicated to equipping youth with the essential skills and tools for entrepreneurship and work, with the aim of ensuring that they can thrive socially and economically.
We have implemented programs across east, central, north, and southern Uganda. The organization has partnered with 100 TVETS and 25 Community Based Organisations across Uganda, including refugee-led organizations. In addition, Wezesha Impact co-leads a loose coalition of 13 grassroots NGOs under the umbrella name of the "Africa Coalition for Social Impact." The reach and impact of Wezesha Impact is significant. Between 2014 and 2024, Wezesha Impact worked with over 15,700 youth. An external impact evaluation of alumni of Wezesha Impact’s programs that was commissioned by Livelihood Impact Fund and conducted by BFA Global, found that 88% of the youth surveyed were actively participating in the labour force. In addition, graduates surveyed earned an average of USD300 more than the control group per annum. Graduates were also more likely to report that their incomes were sufficient to support themselves.
The organization's mission is to improve entrepreneurship and employment outcomes of youth in Africa through skilling and enterprise development.
Our goal is to empower 100,000 youth over the next three years by providing market-relevant skills training and connecting entrepreneurs to market opportunities. Our model is focused on three key areas:
Skills and Enterprise Academy: Offers practical learning experiences to equip young entrepreneurs with essential skills for starting, managing, and growing their businesses.
Enterprise Growth Lab: Provides technical support, mentoring, and follow-up services to improve the performance and survival rates of small enterprises.
Markets for Youth: Works to increase the purchasing and influencing power of rural youth in the agricultural market and facilitates connections between small enterprises and larger firms to create market opportunities.
We co-implement these interventions in partnership with formal vocational schools, non-formal training initiatives that work with Youth. These co-implementation partnerships ensure that youth receive a more holistic hard skills and soft skills education experience. Where needed, we engage the services of specialized expertise to provide tailored technical support to youth entrepreneurs.
This integrated approach ensures that youth are equipped with the skills, support, and market access needed to succeed in their ventures and actively participate in their communities.
Program Activities
Signing MOU with partner Vocational Schools
We work in partnership with Vocational Training Institutions. Once we identify a viable Vocational Institute, we reach out to the leadership and speak with them about the Program. The institute is required to expressions interest through filling out an expression of interest form. Once selected we sign the MOU and signals formal partnerships, and we proceed to engage the Youth of the vocational Institute.
Youth Outreach, Call for Applications and Selection:
The purpose of the youth outreach is twofold. Firstly, it aims to raise awareness and generate excitement among young people about the program and its value proposition. Secondly, it seeks to facilitate their application to participate in the programme. During the outreach sessions, interested youth are informed about the program, its purpose, benefits, and format, and encouraged to participate. Application forms are distributed for the youth to apply, and mentors provide support to assist youth with the application process.
ii. Design and Preparation:
The design and preparation of the training and mentorship phases is a crucial step in ensuring that the programme's goals are met. Tailored training materials are designed to ensure that the trainers have all the necessary resources needed to deliver the training. The training materials are designed to be interactive, engaging, and tailored to the needs of the participants.
iii. Training Sessions: The sessions are a set of experiential learning sessions that seek to empower young people with the skills and knowledge for life and work and to develop innovative business ideas. The training is entirely action oriented and youth-led, with mentors on hand to introduce new tools and methods. The young people are responsible for all decision-making and define and design the elements of their ideas and enterprises. The trainings are entirely about learning by doing. This approach allows for focused attention on each group of participants, ensuring that they receive the necessary support, guidance, and mentorship to develop innovative solutions to address community issues.
iv. Mentorship and linkages: The Mentorship program consists of multiple phases that aim to identify young people with the potential to create community change projects. During the first phase, teams focus on ideating and planning well thought-out solutions and committed teams. Teams and mentors will go into the field to meet target audiences, stakeholders, partners, suppliers. At the end of this phase, the 1st pitch will be organized to select and ward the teams with well-thought-out ideas. In the next phase of mentoring, the goal is to turn ideas into action. Youth build out their solutions. In addition, youth with enterprises will be organized in business improvement groups and receive tailored technical support from both in house staff and outsourced expertise over two-year period.
v. Awards: The Wezesha Impact Skill and Enterprise awards is a platform where young people can showcase their innovative ideas and enterprises. The aim is to bring together young people from diverse backgrounds to exchange ideas, learn from each other, and celebrate their achievements. Judges are invited from different stakeholder groups, including government, civil society organizations, private sector, and academia. The judges evaluate the presentations based on the innovativeness of the idea, impact, feasibility, sustainability, and scalability. The awards recognize the hard work and innovative thinking of young people and encourage them to continue developing their initiatives. The above activities are co-implemented in conjunction with Youth Business Fellows from Wezesha Impact and Instructors from Vocational Institutions.
For the next 3 years (2025-2027) we plan to implement the following Goals and activities,
Key Result 1: 7,000 youth in vocational training secure dignified employment through starting a business or finding jobs.
We will equip youth in their final year of vocational training with skills and tools for entrepreneurship. The program experience is delivered in established vocational training centres as an add-on to the hard skills training offered by the vocational training centres. The program experience is delivered weekly (4 hours of teaching and mentoring) in the final year of vocational training, then followed by 6 months of individual mentoring.
Key actions will include:
a) Building partnerships with formal and informal training centers to deliver Wezesha Impact’s practical learning experience through Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Clubs.
b) Training vocational instructors and youth business fellows to mentor youth.
c) Organizing youth competitions and exhibitions.
d) Linking youth to market information.
Key Assumption: We assume a minimum 50% success rate. Thus, in 2025 to 2027, we will work with a total of 14,000 youth in vocational training and ensure that 7,000 (50%) secure dignified employment.
Key Result 2: 3,000 out-of-school youth secure dignified employment through starting a business or finding jobs.
We shall equip out-of-school youth with skills and tools for entrepreneurship. The program experience primarily caters for out-of-school youth who are unemployed. The programme is delivered for youth in community-based youth groups or groups of youth that we mobilize individually. The program experience is delivered weekly (4 hours of teaching and mentoring) for 6 months, then followed by 6 months of apprenticeship with a local artisan and then followed by 6 months of individual mentoring.
Key actions will include:
a) Building partnerships with artisans and community-based organizations to deliver Wezesha Impact’s practical learning experience.
b) Training community mentors and youth business fellows to mentor youth.
c) Organizing youth competitions and exhibitions. Linking youth to market information.
Key Assumption: We assume a minimum 50% success rate. Thus, in 2025 to 2027, we will work with a total of 6,000 out-of-school youth and ensure that 3,000 (50%) secure dignified employment.
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