Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre, a holistic way of life

Jan 11, 2021 Leader Issues 0

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Don Bosco Vocational Center is a training institute located in Palabek, Lamwo district. It is a fully-fledged technical school designed to take refugees through technical skills in automotive engineering, tailoring, beauty, hairdressing and bricklaying among the courses offered. What makes the institute unique is that it provides these skills to refugee youth for free; yes, they do not have to pay any tuition fee whatsoever.

The principal of the institute, Fr. Roger Mbayo Mukadi said the idea of skilling the Sudanese refugees is to help them manage to earn a living, even when far away from home. Palabek Refugee settlement is gazetted on a twenty-kilometer square area with a population of 53,334 refugees with an estimated 15,907 households. The youth (14-24years) constitute an estimated 11,758 persons, which translates to 22% of the total population.

This is the target group, which the institute enrols as students. The students are picked randomly from the refugee settlement as long as they show interest to learn; their education background is not a prerequisite. The institute also caters for Ugandan citizens who equally enjoy the same privileges. Currently, there are two hundred and thirty-six students enrolled, eighty-one are Ugandan citizens, the refugees constitute the bigger percentage with a total number of one hundred fifty-five. At Palabek, there are also four nursery schools run by missionaries, about nine primary schools run by the government of Uganda through the office of the prime minister, only one secondary school and some non-governmental organizations like The Windle Trust.

On a visit to the refugee settlement by His Grace Archbishop, John Baptist Odama, Bishop of Gulu, on 22nd October 2020 where he commissioned three new chapels of the already existing thirteen, the Archbishop also made a tour of the vocational institute. His Grace commended the work of the Salesians of Don Bosco, but above all, he advised the young ladies in the tailoring and beauty section to take time to settle down in family life after they had completed their course. For the young mothers, he advised them to emulate the Holy family. He further encouraged them to work hard and be self-sufficient while in the competitive world.

The Archbishop while touring the institute, challenged the students in the mechanics section to always produce quality work coupled with honesty and sincerity. He emphasized that it’s only their good deed, which would speak. He went on to encourage ‘living in togetherness’ among the different communities in order to promote peace even among the nations.

Archbishop Odama urged the students to embrace the opportunity they have, as God-given because it is near unimaginable for people to get skills, moreover, when they did not have to pay any coin. In the agricultural section, he told the students to put their skills in bolstering cross border trade because the demand for agriculture products is required far and wide. He went on to mention the need for people practising agriculture to respect the environment. He deeply emphasized the need for eco relations between their farming practices and the natural environment.

After the Archbishops tour of the institute, he expressed gratitude and satisfaction upon the work done by the Salesians of Don Bosco and their benefactors. On his part, the principal of the institute, Fr. Roger also added that they do not only skill the students, but instil in them a holistic way of life.

This is evident in the institutes’ program because mass is compulsory for the students and also, cleaning of the learning environment is done by the students themselves on a daily basis.

R.N. Ayogo

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