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Harunah Damba lived an ordinary life until the fateful year of 2015.  Falling ill for about three years, the young man slowly started to lose his hearing ability. Ear by ear, the sound disappeared. The silence was so loud. At only 22 years, Damba became deaf.

“In 2015, I suffered an illness and developed difficulty in hearing. The problem started with my left ear and later shifted to my right ear, and soon silence etched in both my ears,” he narrates.

After several failed attempts by medical doctors to treat his illness, an old lady convinced Damba’s parents to take him home. She advised that they use herbal medicine which they also later learnt was useless.

Faced with the new reality that he would be deaf, Damba did not take it so well. It was no easy feat.

“I didn’t know any bit of sign language and neither did my parents nor relatives. I used to live in seclusion because it was difficult, almost impossible for me to engage in any conversation. While in such a situation, I could see that most of my friends with similar impairment had a lot on their mind, asking questions like; would we ever get a decent living and or good employment?” he recounts.

Corridor talk from the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) fraternity illuminated him to the discrimination that would befall him in the employment market.

“I knew the future was going to be hard without any form of self-employment,” he says. It was at that moment that Damba made the decision to become an entrepreneur.

Damba is an entrepreneur

With the help of his dad, Damba has made strides in his ambitions.

At only 27 years, in a country reeling with youth unemployment, Damba owns a garden, sugarcane plantation and a poultry house of both local and exotic birds. The young lad also leased land for a brickmaking project.

He earns enough from his businesses to meet his needs.

Damba is also a beacon amongst the PWD fraternity in Bweyogerere where he is the chairperson-elect of PWDs at the parish and founder of United Persons with Disabilities (UPWDs), a disabled peoples’ organization in Bweyogerere parish.

“The organization has transformed into a social impact body tackling youth unemployment and increasing empowerment. We are still in the budding stage and using our own resources to set an example of what we really committed to. Currently, we are running two projects for the benefit of PWDs; bead making and poultry, and we are devising means of investing in mushroom growing,” he reveals.

Damba qualifies as a jack of all traits having volunteered at Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) as a junior scientist before the covid-19 outbreak.

“I am thrilling at the epitome of my efforts. At the moment, I am looking at ways to expand my businesses and also integrate modern technologies,” he revels in his success.

MTN Youth skilling program

It was in his efforts to expand his business and hone skills in digital technology and youth social entrepreneurship that Damba landed on the MTN youth skilling program which he has since learnt extensively from.

“I am greatly enthralled to discover how ICT and entrepreneurship is bridging the rampant unemployment gap, and making PWDs resourceful and valuable. I commend the approach being used to train the next generation of young leaders which involves a paid training to acquire an internationally recognized International Certificate of digital literacy (ICDL) with cutting-edge modules tailored to our problems, business training, networking and mentorship,” he says.

Bearing Haruna’s hearing impairment in mind, the youth skilling program which was conducted online, ensured he was included through utilizing zoom online services which carried captions for interpretation.

“The zoom app has inclusive features like automatic captioning and a chat window. So I utilized them to always ask whenever I had not understood the concept and they were indeed mindful of the fact that the program includes people like me. We also heard google classroom and this is where most of the content was posted from class materials to reference content,” he explains.

He goes on to add; “I see this opportunity as an optimal catalyst for me to launch a career in ICT and youth social entrepreneurship to the level where I can create economic and employment opportunities for not only myself but also a wider range of individuals.”

Challenges

In spite of this success, it has not been a rosy journey for the young gentleman from Namanve. His hearing impairment has cost him friends and shone upon him a judgmental light in society.

“Most of my friends do not know sign language and many could not spare time to write while communicating to me. Many of them felt offended when I retorted because of my disability that I couldn’t hear them and that they please write down what they are saying. Also, many still have the false perception against us, the disabled. They see our disability more than our abilities. They are quick to judge what I can and can’t do because of my disability, yet I am more than what they perceive me to be,” he notes.

Shaking off the grim, Damba believes the future is bright.

He is certain that he is now an asset to drive his association; UPWDs, from a grass root level to an internationally recognized institution, having attained knowledge and skills in resource mobilization, business setup and management along with soft skills: networking, collaboration, presentation among others.

In five years, Damba envisions himself as a successful entrepreneur.

At the end of last year, the MTN Foundation Uganda launched an exciting training opportunity for the youth, dubbed the Youth Empowerment Program with the aim of offering technology training to at least 100 youths, in the various areas of their interest as the country embraces the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The MTN Foundation Youth Empowerment Program is aimed at designing and delivering practical knowledge, skills experience for youth and young adults in preparation for the 4th Industrial Revolution. All this comes at a backdrop of the Covid19 pandemic that has demonstrated the immense need of digitalized systems to keep businesses and communities afloat in times of catastrophic circumstances.

While announcing the winners of the Youth Empowerment Program today, Wim Vanhelleputte, the MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer said that this is one of the many initiatives that MTN Uganda has put in place to enable the youth tap into the limitless possibilities of the Fourth industrial revolution to the benefit of both communities and businesses in the country.

“The overwhelming numbers of the applications that we received are a good indicator that the youth of this country are keen on Technology and are eager to become the very instruments of growth and development in their communities,” said Vanhelleputte.

Applications were called and within the 14-day application window, an impressive 1,993 applications were received for the thrilling offer. The applications comprised of: 1,741 unique applications, with 71.2% male applicants and 28.9% female applicants, a good indicator that the females are starting to take up their Space in the Technology space.

 

The application call appealed to youths of various academic qualifications ranging from the Masters’ level of education to even those with no academic qualifications but a keen interest in the field of technology and innovation. The applicants included a plethora of university graduates, innovators and those engaged in Small and Medium with a mission of inspiring and empowering them towards harnessing the practical application of innovative ICT solutions to solve their communities’ most pressing challenges. The bulk of the applications came in from Kampala, Wakiso, Mbarara, Lira, Gulu.

Out of the above applications, 100 applicants were carefully selected and they will be trained in their various fields of interest, with the aim of empowering them to harness the limitless possibilities of Technology to provide solutions to the challenges in their communities in their selected areas of interest. The full list of winners is available here. The program participants will be trained in the key thematic areas of: Agriculture, Education, Health, Technology and Youth Empowerment

The MTN Foundation Youth Empowerment Program will be implemented in partnership with Ubunifu systems, a software development firm based in Uganda. Ubunifu systems has cut its niche in professional mobile and web development with a focus on innovative, personalized and fully functional solutions that deliver value and satisfaction.

In his announcement, Vanhelleputte also noted that the five winners of last year’s MTN #ForGood campaign will be the first beneficiaries of the Youth Empowerment program. The five winners are; Douglas Smith, Joseph Semayengo, Julius Tusingwire, Tony Ayebare and Brian Mawere aka Maw Brian.

Since the youth are the majority in Uganda, with 77% of them aged below 25 years, they are a big and essential component in the country’s growth and development. It is against this background that the MTN Foundation chose to involve them to stimulate local innovation, which in turn will help them find gainful employment through community transforming innovations as we enter the new era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

MTN is committed to integrating the youth in its programs as envisaged by its past engagements with them. In 2019, MTN invited the youth to develop applications that use MTN MoMo APIs, to monetize both consumer and business opportunities digitally, a task many of them executed successfully.

MTN and Ericsson awarded MTN Mobile Money Open API challenge with cash a combined cash prize of USD$6,000 (approx. UGX22.06 million) and a trip to the Ericsson innovation Centre in Sweden, for the overall winner.