WHOEVER WANTS OUR CHILDREN TO GROW UP IN POVERTY LIKE WE DID IS OUR FIRST ENEMY—MITOOMA YOUTH ASSEMBLY CHAIRMAN

By www.mknewslink.com
In Mitooma

It’s a great honor for me to talk to Mitooma Community today to celebrate the launch of Mitooma Youth Assembly, in particular what this institution has achieved in a very short period; at our Official launch that took place on 11th January 2020 at Bubangizi play Ground, a number of activities took place;
First and foremost, let me congratulate Ruhinda County for a well deserved (2:0) win in a football match played against Ruhinda North, and congratulate Ruhinda North for a strong resistance and determination you exhibited during the match. I say congratulations to you all.

Importantly, 257 more youth from across Mitooma District registered to join Mitooma Youth Assembly. I want to tell new members you have joined a great trek to socio-economic freedom, and I promise we shall journey together until we are there.

Let me take a few minutes to share with you our plans moving forward.

The first and foremost duty or responsibility of Mitooma Youth Assembly is to cultivate a network of Mitooma youth through creating space for sharing and mobilisation of knowledge, ideas and resources for socio-economic betterment of all, by itself, is not enough. We need to relate that to our daily challenges because if we don’t have the relevance, people will just ignore the movement, our focus is on social significance: how we make a difference in the lives of people who come in contact with us, in the lives of people who live in the communities we belong to, and in the society that we represent. As a good socio-economic development movement we have three outputs. And I will share them with you . (1) Mitooma Youth seed Fund, (2) Mitooma Youth SACCO.

Now let me go in depth with respect to all three outputs mentioned above.

What are our plans for Mitooma Youth Seed Fund? Important to note is, we are creating something called Mitooma Youth Seed Fund, this is an initiative to help Mitooma Youth who have business ideas and innovations but have no start-up capital to have access to capital and incubation. This is the first of its kind in Mitooma, for over a billion years Mitooma has existed, this is the first time such a initiative is introduced, am very hopeful, Mitooma Youth will not remain the same.
I understand most youth don’t have property to secure them loans in mainstream banks a reason why Mitooma Youth Seed Fund has been established, where Members of Mitooma Youth Assembly will not require security to access this fund.

Secondly, the Mitooma Youth SACCO, as we join the business world, saving and credit are going to be part of us, for Mitooma Youth that are new into this world need an institution that understands them, the environment they are operating in, local market dynamics and Mitooma Youth SACCO shall solve this puzzle.
When I founded Mitooma Youth Assembly a question on my mind, was, How do you encourage someone to save, when he is not earning? First empower them to earn and teach them to save! And that’s what Mitooma Youth Assembly is doing. Let the youth access capital, own business start-ups and save. ( Seed Fund>>SACCO theory).

Our plan is that we will target major business partners and well-wishers to raise the 700 Millions we need for our seed Fund initiative, everyone is invited to give a hand in this noble cause.

Our fundraising campaign starts now, and every contribution matters a lot and can get one youth out of poverty. So this year in may, our plan is to hold a mega fundraising event, your idea on how it can be a success is highly welcome.

In preparation for our May fundraising event, we have started forming different forums. We will [regularly] do forums in Kampala, Mbarara and Mitooma. We want to make it regular forums where we will target our partners

Now let me discuss strengthening our presence in Mitooma district, in April we are going to have a Mitooma Youth conference in Mitooma district, where youth from different parts of Mitooma will gather and extensively discuss matters affecting them and make resolutions on possible solutions & identify opportunities.

So, moving forward, Mitooma will still be the essence. But there is also the aspect of national significance, making a difference in the lives of all Ugandan Youth; we will continue engaging youth in other regions to replicate our Youth socio-economic empowerment model. And this will be the next agenda [journey]. We want to create a self-help culture among Youth to avoid exploitation by selfish individuals. I mean as Youth we need to have a unified team and a unified mission to end this chronic poverty parasiting our generation. I want to assure fellow youth that we are on the right path, I’ve never before been proud of hailing from Mitooma like today, I want to tell whoever wants to work with us is welcome and whoever wants to see us sink more into suffering, poverty, exploitation, unemployment, illiteracy, your days are over, we are now a more United force and ready to see ourselves better for ourselves and our children and community. Mitooma indeed is a blessed place and may God bless sons and daughters of our land!

Before I conclude, I want to share a personal story which I think I share with most of mitooma youth, while at University, in one of the conferences, I was asked to define the term poverty, I couldn’t get one phrase to explain this horrible thing; what I did, I told my story of how I managed to go to school by my mother selling papyrus threads, the house I grew up in, how malaria also took a way my life as I grew, how I don’t eat blue-band and Zesta because I saw them when I was 23 years, I told the gathering how I got the first pair of shoes and a pair of trousers when I was in senior four, the wave of fear came towards us like the Niagara Falls and everyone shocked their head in agreement with me that that was the true definition of poverty. Our children must not grow up in such environment and whoever wants our children to face this nature of life is our first enemy and we must fight back with everything in our reach, and we fight better and we will win a United team – Mitooma Youth Assembly.

The reason I bring up this story is, at Mitooma Youth Assembly we practice humility. We keep our feet on the ground. We are determined to make a difference and let the world speak about us, rather than talking about ourselves a lot. I am a big believer in practicing humanity, humility, and integrity. And I want to thank all of you for giving me this chance to be a part of this exciting journey.Having spent time in many great Youth movements, this is my journey from success to significance. Serving my people, people of mighty Mitooma District.

Mitooma Youth Assembly means light. Let’s work together to bring light to many lives , create a Mitooma that will always be growing with peace and prosperity.

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