Leenca Profiles

Leenca Profiles is a hub for youths in Uganda providing them with available online courses from prestigious colleges, white and blue collar jobs available here in Uganda and overseas.

The proposed solution aims at creating a hub for youths in Uganda to attain online courses from various prestigious schools,  update on available jobs either blue or white collar here in Uganda and overseas. The proposed solution will be a website integrated with links to several online sites providing online education with certificates from high profile schools for instance the edx online platform, a ton of YouTube videos explaining tedious and complicated A level concepts, provision of job announcements so as to link employers and job seekers. The website will be a free platform with no registration required. Once an individual visits my website, he/she will be introduced to the home page that highlights out the opportunities available to them in the education sector, career buildup, skill development  or job provision. When one selects a category, he/she will be redirected to page that explains the category profoundly that is what outcomes they are to expect and the requirements needed by the different platforms providing the service in need. This will be a conducive website that be available in different local and international languages providing convenience in understanding the services available to anyone here in Uganda.

The aim of the proposed solution is to improve the general welfare of the youths and their contribution towards Uganda's Gross Domestic Product. Uganda has one of the youngest populations in the world with roughly 70% of the population aged less than 25 years according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics'(UBOS) 2013 report. It's  2018 report shows that Youth unemployment stands at a level between 64% and 70% with this being one of the biggest problems the government of Uganda is grappling with. About 30% of the youth who are institutionally qualified in Uganda are unable to find jobs and the situation is worse for those semiskilled or unskilled and this often pushes most of them into crimes like drug abuse and gambling(Peter Magelah and Barbara Ntambirweki 2014 debate on unemployment). Generally, the high unemployment rate in Uganda and Africa at large can be attributed to the slow economic growth, small formal labor markets, the rigid education system, limited social networks, among others. This problem increases rural-urban migration, homelessness, severe financial hardships and poverty.

Unemployment is one of the major challenges faced by Uganda with statistics putting the unemployment rate at 64% of the youth  according to National bureau of statistics' 2013 report. The majority of the youthful population are still employed in subsistence farming whereas graduates lack skills that are employable due to the theoretical nature of Uganda’s education system. Government has over the years come up with programs designed at alleviating the youth from poverty and using them as a tool of development and social change through programs and policies like the Youth Livelihood Program. The program was intended to increase self employment amongst the unemployed and poor youth all over Uganda, fund youth groups  formed and facilitated by local governments with its approved annual budget being  Sh1 billion. This program and many other ventures built up by the government have made insignificant  development to the improvement of the economic welfare of Youth in Uganda. This is where the proposed solution comes in to solve this the problem.  The number of internet users was 12.16 million which increased by 1.5 million (+1.4%) between 2020 and 2021. Basing on that notion, Leenca Profiles will be easily accessed by this huge mass of people will be the platform for portfolio development through attaining several skills like digital marketing and act as a  bridge for job seekers to job providers.

Personally, I worked at my mum's local restaurant and got a chance to experience how tough the working conditions are for most Ugandans since  majority of the nation's workforce is unskilled. I worked there in 2019 during my senior four holiday for about four months and interacted with several older Youth over 20 years of age who were earning about the same amount of money as I did( about Sh 5,000 per day) but had a lot of financial responsibility to overcome. In those four months, I saw how unsanitary the "places of work" were. These areas of work have no demarcation and majority of the individuals would layout out their merchandise on walkways  .There was no regulation of commodities being sold and the commodities themselves were usually mediocre. I haven't yet engaged any potential user in the design and development of my project  because it's still at a prototype stage of development and am held back from continuous development by my rigid school program. 

At the time, my solution is at a prototype stage of development. This because I'm  an Advanced level student and I have a rigid school program that makes it hard to develop the website effectively. Other factors contributing to the stance are the expenses involved with development of the website that is the right plugins, website hosting and advertising it to the general masses through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook which are prominent among my target population. I was fortunately provided with a free subdomain name under Doppler technology so as to develop and advance my website until I get enough money to purchase my own hosting space. 

My proposed solution was a website which was designed and developed using WordPress and Canva. WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) around. It powers 38% of all internet websites among big and small businesses. With it, you can create, manage, and scale any kind of website, personal blog, online store and others for a small scale business. It comes with in built templates and themes an individual can build his or her website on. Additional features include plugins which are software that add functionality to one's website. Canva is a  free graphic design platform that's great for making invitations, business cards, Instagram posts, and more. A drag and drop interface makes customizing thousands of templates simple and easy. Canva's wide array of features allow you to edit photos without extensive photo editing knowledge or experience.

I haven't yet launched my solution as of yet because I had recently started to build it. As for the number of people I target to reach out, I estimate 1000s of Youth in Uganda and that number will raise when my platform gains popularity. I'll expand to the rest of East Africa years to come when it proves to be a success in Uganda.

I plan to expand my solution to a bigger audience that is to the rest of East Africa and neighboring countries because they all succumb to similar challenges. I plan to add other parties that help develop and scale up East African owned  businesses, train individuals on business management and customer service. For expansion of the website to reach a larger audience of East Africa, I plan to widen my social media advertising since social media is widely used by every Youth that has access to the internet. I'll build a mobile app for both android and IOS users so as my audience always quick notification of any available opportunity. For integration of other parties that will help bring my goal of developing Youths' financial welfare to fruition will depend on how effective the solution is this year.

For measurement of progress and impact of my proposed solution, I'll use Google Analytics to keep track of my website visitors . It will let me  see how many visitors I'm  getting and what they do while visiting my website. There will a section in the website that will let my visitors comment on the experience while visiting different websites linked with in the website, those who are recruited for jobs will give a feedback on the work atmosphere and to what extent has the website been  effective in their career growth. Their will be room for inquiries and recommendations from the visitors so as to improve user experience.

Currently am an A level finalist and have very limited time to develop and improve my website. Secondly, at the time my only source of income is from my parents which prohibits from accessing premium features on the various platforms that are vital for a response website. The data expenses are also another barrier because I have to trim off some money from my daily lunch money so as to buy data and continue developing my website. Those are the only barriers prohibiting and effective build up of my website.

Currently, the  build up of this solution was by one individual. My name is Claus Ssebugwawo and I'm a Form Six student at Mengo Senior Secondary School. I have a certificate in website designing and hosting, graphics design and digital marketing from Doppler Technology, Uganda. I have another certificate in Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies from HarvardX. All these certificates were attained last year in 2021. I've been teaching myself how to code using html, CSS and Java script for about a year.  For work experience, the proposed solution will be my first application of my skills on a noticeable scale. From Doppler Technology, I managed to learn how to design an appealing website and how to get to a large audience. I learnt how to look out for institutional voids affecting my society and how to address these challenges from the HavardX course I attended at the start of last year.

Currently I don't partner with any organization but hopefully I'll draw in more participants in my intended cause.