By Andrew Arinaitwe
The bakery section under the State House Presidential Industrial Hub has encouraged youth to start up bakeries to add value to ingredients like cassava flour and matooke flour.
“We use Ugandan made sugar, butter or BlueBand (margarine), baking powder, maize flour or wheat flour, potato flour, matooke flour, preservatives like lemon, milk depending on what you want to make,” Edward Twinomugisha a participant at the bakery told New Vision.
The value addition project was presented at the 2024 Harvest Money Expo at the Kololo Independence Grounds where hundreds of stakeholders in the agricultural value chain exhibited opportunities to help provide support for farmers to improve their yield.
The three-day expo ran from February 23, 2024, to February 25, 2024.
The bakery initiative whose aim was to open entrepreneurial opportunities since 2017 for girls, has since 2019 broadened its scope to include boys.
The bakery which was initially created on the foundation of skilling learners makes bread, snacks like cakes, daddies, and cookies.
“We target school dropouts and empower them with skills to prevent youth from theft and crime related gangs that may divert their energies,” Twinomugisha said.
Diana Kaberuka, an instructor at the bakery, told New Vision that the ingredients are all procured from Uganda.
“The bread ranges from sh3,000 to sh5,000 and other snacks are modestly priced,” Kaberuka said.
The bread is branded with letter ‘M’ with the words “Produced by the Presidential Skilling Initiative”.
Clients made random walk-ins at the tent, instantly curious to taste the bread made by youth at the bakery.
The skilling project is a brainchild by President Yoweri Museveni whose vision was to mobilise youth masses for social economic transformation, emphasising job creation, improved household incomes and increased productivity among the youth.
The primary objective of the initiative is to empower vulnerable urban youth especially those from ghetto and the less privileged background, to impart employable skills that lead to job and wealth creation and to promote productivity while curving criminality.
