Opportunity Station Uganda (OPTION UG)

I am applying for the Elevate Prize so that I can create an inclusive digital platform (Opportunity Station) to sharpen youth and women survival skills and increase their access to digital opportunities and how they can turn them into sources of income for their survival.

 Elevate Prize funding will help me to

-Conduct a Needs Assessment,

-Select and Register beneficiaries,

-Develop training content (customized in local languages),

- Training beneficiaries (vulnerable youth and women)

-Conduct Staff capacity building

-Pay administrative costs

-Create strategic partnerships, resource mobilization for sustainability

-Monitor and evaluate the program

My name is Gastone Mwiine. My colleagues call me Mr. Google, because I provide ideas and solutions. 

I am the founder of Opportunity Station Uganda (OPTION Uganda),  a creative local Ugandan NGO established in 2020 in response to the emerging livelihood needs of vulnerable women and youth brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. We empower vulnerable women and youth with alternative self-reliance solutions.

Vision:

OPTION Uganda envisions a society in which women and youth are free from Poverty and violence.

Mission:

Our mission is to create a generation of resilient women and youth equipped with diverse forms of knowledge and potential to create solutions for their personal and community challenges.

Objectives:  

i) Training youth in online entrepreneurship for income generation

ii) Increasing youth and women access to digital opportunities and how they use them for sel-reliance.

Goals:

Over the next Five years, our target is 10 million smart phone users by 2025.

By 2025, OPTION’s goal is to further replicate and scale the platform to all East African countries.

Globally, youth unemployment rate stands at 13.6% (ILO 2020).  Uganda’s national unemployment rate is 9.2%, youth unemployment for ages 18-30 is 13.3%.

 COVID-19  outbreak has not only caused a global health emergency and created new challenges, but also aggravated the youth unemployment situation in Uganda because their businesses have closed, they lack skills to diversify and start up new businesses, even those with skills lack capital to engage in alternative income generation activities. Most of them have lost employment due to COVID -19 restrictions. They cannot fend for their families due to limited day to day income generating activities. This may force them to opt for violence and other risky ventures in order to survive.

 Despite Uganda's socio-economic recovery interventions, the rate of youth unemployment is still alarming. Youth and women livelihoods have been ignored as more efforts are concentrated on fighting COVID-19.

Opportunity Station (OPTION) confronts women and youth challenges through digital tools:

a) Survival Skills Academy (SUSA) which offers short vocational courses, online entrepreneurship courses, and digital skills courses customized in local languages.

b) Solution Tv (Opportunity Chat Show) which creates youth awareness about digital opportunities and how to access them.  

Drugs claimed our eldest brother’s life after failing to go to school or get a job. My siblings and I struggled to get education because it was expensive and bursaries were rare to find due to lack of access to information and opportunities. I only stopped at Diploma Level and my siblings dropped out. With my first teaching job salary, I paid my sister’s school fees who dropped out again due to failure to pay me. My parents did not save money for my startup capital or leave me a plot of land or where I would lean on but Internet has helped me to maximize my potential.

Low education and family background did not stop me from dreaming. I applied for digital opportunities and learnt all the skills I ever needed and it is because of digital skills, that what I am Today! One of the best Virtual Assistants in the city owning a virtual Web hosting company, a Social Enterprise and working with over 10 NGOs as a part time freelance Grant Writer.

OPTION Uganda exists for all, who cannot access opportunities due to language barrier, ignorance and low self-esteem. I am breaking those barriers.

We have a robust M& E framework which guides evaluation plan, data collection and management. The data generated by the team have helped in revisions of projects which has resulted in more effective achievement of project objectives and obtaining value for money and compliance with donor requirement and risk reduction.

Monitoring and evaluation has allowed us to understand our impact. It is possible for us to measure how much we've been able to achieve. It also makes us transparent to our communities. It gives us an opportunity to go to our donors and show evidence of how much we've been able to do. For example, we've been able to reach to over 1000 vulnerable youth and women through various self-reliance skills training through using short video lectures in mp4 format, we've been able to reach to more than 5000 youth and women  through our Solution TV(online)  program called “The Opportunity Chat”  during the pandemic, we've been able to reach to more than 100 youth and women through mentorship and we've been able to reach to more than 1000 youth and women through whatsapp Weekly chats.