The impact of the youth livelyhood program on youth social transformation in Mukono District..

Abstract

The study is aimed at exploring the impact of the Youth Livelihood Program on the social transformation of the youths in Mukono Municipality, Goma Division, Mukono District. The study focused on establishing how YLP has contributed to the social transformation of youth in Mukono. Adopting a qualitative approach of data collection using key informant interviews, observation, and focus group discussion. The study had three objectives; to explore what activities the youths engage in within the program, to examine how their participation improves their social well-being, and to analyze what challenges youth face in the process of transformation. Findings from the study indicated that the youth engage in several activities in YLP, these include poultry farming, welding, carpentry, and laundry dry cleaning business among others. The findings further reveal that youth participation in the activities improved their well-being by creating employment, building networks, having stable businesses, developing them into professions such as engineers, farmers, and home service providers, and putting them in positions that helped them acquire more assets. As regards to challenges, the study revealed that the youth had a problem of corruption and limited security for loans. Also found out that some youths get involved in the swindling of the funds they obtain from YLP which negatively affects reason for its establishment. Therefore, YLP has made some contributions to the improvement of the well-being of the youth, however, the youth face some challenges in participating in the YLP program. Therefore, there is need to reduce on the requirements of participating in YLP program to allow many youths to get involved and transform their ways of lives and also increasing monitoring and evaluation to keep youths active in the YLP activities.