Let us embrace the culture of volunteering
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni attributed the cause of the widespread violent riots and mayhem in September 2009, partly to idle youth who have too much time on their hands.
By Vivian Asedri
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni attributed the cause of the widespread violent riots and mayhem in September 2009, partly to idle youth who have too much time on their hands.
With Uganda’s population growth rate at over 3%, being one of the highest in the world, universities keep spewing thousands of graduates annually into a proportionately shrinking job market.
The picture even gets grimmer when you factor in the Primary Seven, Senior Four and Senior Six drop-outs, who were unfortunate enough to be absorbed by tertiary trade institutions that transform them into productive blue collar workers in a shorter time than their university colleagues who focus on white collar jobs.
I believe that as a nation, our youth and employers need to embrace the culture to provide volunteer services as a remedy to tackle this malignant cancer.
This may sound bizarre to job seekers to whom employment means instant monetary rewards. True as this may be, the provision of volunteer services is a double-edged sword that benefits both the job-seeker and the employer.
While on face value it would appear as if the job-seeker is providing free services to the employer, he acquires on-job skills that buttresse his curriculum vitae.
The flipside of this symbiotic relationship is the employer benefiting from the “free labour†of the volunteer. Going a step further, this will expose brilliant and hard working volunteers to employers who can then be retained by the company to which they provide their services.
And for those who will have been unlucky enough to get hired by the volunteer service recipient, all is not lost because the skills and work experience acquired puts them in potentially better positions to either get hired for a paid job elsewhere or for them to start their own small scale businesses.
It is volunteers in this latter category that will rely on the references and recommendations from their former volunteer service recipients to their prospective employers.
However, in an employment culture like ours, to protect desperate job seekers from slave-like exploitation by unscrupulous employers, the Ministry of Labour and the Parliament should enact laws that will not only encourage volunteering, but also stipulate that companies that welcome volunteers get tax credit from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
The Government and URA should encourage such tax incentive because by opening their doors to volunteers, these companies are ultimately helping the Government to solve the problem of unemployment.
Other aspects of such legislation may include clauses that address the fact that a volunteer shall not be coerced to work a tight schedule as mandated by the employer, but rather be available at the volunteer’s flexible discretion.
Furthermore, as a stimulus to encourage volunteers, employers may be given the discretion to provide transport or lunch stipend to their volunteer workers.
One hidden advantage about volunteering is that for potential job seekers who lack contacts in a company based on “technical-know-who†and are not privy to ways of selling their educational qualification to employers, the sacrifice to volunteer becomes their gateway to getting paid employment.
It is practically impossible for any government to employ 100% of its workforce. But the Government has the obligation and duty to create an environment by way of laws as a catalyst to generate employment.
Whereas volunteering by its nature tends to be concentrated in urban areas and the impact of volunteering may not result in the sudden drop in the numbers of unemployed youth, it is a culture we should embrace to counter idleness and a passport for our youth to quickly gain on-job work skills.
The writer is a medical information technologist,
San Diego, California, US
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni attributed the cause of the widespread violent riots and mayhem in September 2009, partly to idle youth who have too much time on their hands.
With Uganda’s population growth rate at over 3%, being one of the highest in the world, universities keep spewing thousands of graduates annually into a proportionately shrinking job market.
The picture even gets grimmer when you factor in the Primary Seven, Senior Four and Senior Six drop-outs, who were unfortunate enough to be absorbed by tertiary trade institutions that transform them into productive blue collar workers in a shorter time than their university colleagues who focus on white collar jobs.
I believe that as a nation, our youth and employers need to embrace the culture to provide volunteer services as a remedy to tackle this malignant cancer.
This may sound bizarre to job seekers to whom employment means instant monetary rewards. True as this may be, the provision of volunteer services is a double-edged sword that benefits both the job-seeker and the employer.
While on face value it would appear as if the job-seeker is providing free services to the employer, he acquires on-job skills that buttresse his curriculum vitae.
The flipside of this symbiotic relationship is the employer benefiting from the “free labour†of the volunteer. Going a step further, this will expose brilliant and hard working volunteers to employers who can then be retained by the company to which they provide their services.
And for those who will have been unlucky enough to get hired by the volunteer service recipient, all is not lost because the skills and work experience acquired puts them in potentially better positions to either get hired for a paid job elsewhere or for them to start their own small scale businesses.
It is volunteers in this latter category that will rely on the references and recommendations from their former volunteer service recipients to their prospective employers.
However, in an employment culture like ours, to protect desperate job seekers from slave-like exploitation by unscrupulous employers, the Ministry of Labour and the Parliament should enact laws that will not only encourage volunteering, but also stipulate that companies that welcome volunteers get tax credit from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
The Government and URA should encourage such tax incentive because by opening their doors to volunteers, these companies are ultimately helping the Government to solve the problem of unemployment.
Other aspects of such legislation may include clauses that address the fact that a volunteer shall not be coerced to work a tight schedule as mandated by the employer, but rather be available at the volunteer’s flexible discretion.
Furthermore, as a stimulus to encourage volunteers, employers may be given the discretion to provide transport or lunch stipend to their volunteer workers.
One hidden advantage about volunteering is that for potential job seekers who lack contacts in a company based on “technical-know-who†and are not privy to ways of selling their educational qualification to employers, the sacrifice to volunteer becomes their gateway to getting paid employment.
It is practically impossible for any government to employ 100% of its workforce. But the Government has the obligation and duty to create an environment by way of laws as a catalyst to generate employment.
Whereas volunteering by its nature tends to be concentrated in urban areas and the impact of volunteering may not result in the sudden drop in the numbers of unemployed youth, it is a culture we should embrace to counter idleness and a passport for our youth to quickly gain on-job work skills.
The writer is a medical information technologist,
San Diego, California, US