COBATI Training Center Opens in Mbarara
At COBATI, we are super excited to announce the opening of the COBATI Training Center for life skills training. Establishing a community training center has been our dream for a very long time! The Center’s objective is to reach out and support the vulnerable in communities and provide basic functional skills training to help them rise above their challenges. Our motto is never fear to start!
The Center is located in Mbarara Municipality in southwestern Uganda, three hours from Kampala in a transitory district to seven of Uganda’s ten National Parks. It was incredible to return to Mbarara to realize a dream I have had for over 20 years – to establish a community training center to inspire change for social improvement. The goal is to mentor rural women, village girls, and boys to use their hands, tap into their indigenous skills and the surrounding environment to create their own work. Our programs will encourage participants to invest in themselves, be ethical, work hard, strive for self-improvement, move from crime and early marriage, stop domestic violence, and end the vicious cycle of poverty.
The COBATI Training Center is my humble intervention. I aspire to witness the Center generate groups of skilled women and youth capable of producing quality products and providing quality services through their own small businesses across rural Uganda!
The inauguration kicked off January 30, 2015 with a ceremony to award certificates to 93 pioneer trainees who participated in an etiquette and quality customer care service workshop. The Mayor of Mbarara Municipality presided over the ceremony. It was a very big milestone in my life and in my journey of community tourism promotion and advocacy for the last 30 years.
Life Skills Training Model
The COBATI model of training revolves around individuals, households, communities, their culture, and the environment. It is centered on non-formal education and livelihood skills training for women and youth who need to acquire marketable skills to move out of poverty with dignity. Our goal is to mentor people to shift their mindset, embrace new ideas, discover their talent, and acquire skills that will enable them create income opportunities.
Our courses are a combination of classroom learning and practical, hands-on skill instruction. Modules include housekeeping and home-running, hygiene and sanitation awareness, home care for the elderly, cross cultural exchange etiquette, homestead and farm tourism, basic record keeping and group saving, backyard garden farming, handicraft, and customer care service.
COBATI will also use the center as a platform to conduct seminars and workshops to help improve the quality of life for community members by equipping them with simple life skills.
We look forward to reporting on our future progress and success!
