October 31, 2020 – Earlier this month, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) – with support from our partner, the Islamic Development Bank – opened a new Community Learning Center in Moroto, the main town in Uganda’s Karamoja Sub-Region. It is the third center that we have opened in Uganda, with the other two located in Gulu, in the Acholi Sub-Region, and at the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement. This new center and its 10-strong staff will support the deployment of a new branch of our Youth Peacemaker Network in Karamoja, which aims to help bring peace and sustainable development to one of the most impoverished areas of Uganda. In only a few short weeks, the center has already generated significant interest among stakeholders in the area, as illustrated by the center’s opening ceremony, which was attended by many local leaders, including the Resident District Commissioner of Moroto, the Honorable Helen Pulkol.
Community Learning Centers are core to our efforts to build peace and bring sustainable development to some of the most vulnerable communities around the world. They serve as safe spaces for coming together, to gain valuable skills and knowledge, and organize. They offer free certified courses in topics such as conflict resolution, information and communications technology (ICT), entrepreneurship and business skills, and many others – all designed to help participants gain skills that will increase their employability. They host libraries for public use and offer community members an opportunity to connect to the Internet and use computers. The centers also enliven community life through activities such as community dialogues, cultural, or sporting events, all of which aim to cultivate a culture of peace in the surrounding local community.
Demonstrating the relevance of establishing an additional center in Moroto, we have already registered 342 people for the courses in the areas of Information & Communications Technology (121 registrations), Business & Entrepreneurship (99 registrations), Conflict Resolution (71 registrations) and Arts & Crafts (51 registrations). The trainings will start in the first week of November with groups of 50 distributed during the week to follow the strict COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.
In the coming months and years, our ambition is for the Community Learning Center to become a resource that the people of the Moroto District and Karamoja Sub-Region more widely will appropriate and mobilize to foster peace and sustainable development in their communities.