We would welcome 100 percent interventions that come to Pallisa to do empirical research in Pallisa for Pallisa.

The doctor will assess you and will send you to the lab to conduct that test to know what he is treating. For us in Pallisa we are treating something we don’t know. Is that allowed, to treat the disease you don’t know? You need to know the disease you are treating and to give medication according to the results from the lab.

I want to give an example, the recently released results for Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), the performance of Pallisa was very poor. Why poor education performance in Pallisa? What is the cause? Is it the parents? Is it the policies? What is it?

These things we normally talk about them at a pot of malwa, as we socialize in the evening. We lament, “why are we poor,” but we don’t do and don’t have empirical studies on the issues – investigations that bring out the causes. Why are the people of Pallisa trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty? Why is gender-based violence on the increase? We need to have an empirical study.

If you are coming up with such a programme of mentoring young people to appreciate and take up these government programmes is a very good one.

If you came to Pallisa and helped us address the issue of young people, they are the largest section of our population, it would be a very good one. It will build their capacity and it would give them skills. Maybe they would listen. You would help Government.

Government has invested in young people under the Youth Livelihood Programme. But if you look at the recovery as compared with women interventions, the women are far better. At least the women are paying, but the youth, they received the money, but they are not paying back.

The issue of young people is a big problem. The issue of unemployment – especially those who have gone to school. They have graduated but have no jobs. What do you expect someone who has gone to school and has no employment, what do you expect them to do? These are the people who now get involved in crimes, committing crimes.

Even those who did not go to school and those who stopped on the way, that class, they need something to do. These are the people you find in towns, in the villages, early in the morning they are not working; they are not going to the garden to dig. The unproductive population is very dangerous to the nation.

Give young people something to do. If they are not given something to do, those are the crimes that you hear – breaking houses, child marriages, among others.

If young people are kept at school, they have something they are doing and may not engage in child marriages – impregnating a girl and adding to the population problem. The population is already large and young people are not productive. The land is becoming small. And, if you are not productive, where do you get the food to eat?

Gender based violence is high. Issues of access to resources in households, male dominance, control over resources – women can access the resources, like the land, but cannot control, the control is the domain of the man. Power relations in households. If they are kept in school longer, some young people may even take long to get married. And in that time, they may plan and if they get married, they will know how to look after their children.

We have developed nutrition intervention workplans which require funding, but the money is not forthcoming.

The issue of nutrition is a big concern. Government of Uganda is emphasizing nutrition under the Office of the Prime Minister. We have been taken to Kampala several times. We are told to use available resources to implement those nutrition interventions.

Pallisa District

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These thoughts were shared by the Pallsa District Community Development Officer (CDO), Mr. Wamire Dawson, during a conversation that he had with our Managing Director (MD), Ms. Norah Owaraga, on 22nd February 2023 at the CDO’s office in Pallisa District Local Government (DLG) Headquarters. Our MD was on an exploratory visit to Palisa DLG in order to inform our programming. We, at CPAR Uganda, are interested in development interventions in public health and food nutrition is part of public health. We are interested in mentoring young people to be innovators against poverty – mentoring them to actively identify challenges in their communities; to propose solutions to those challenges; and to implement such solutions.