Presented By: African Studies Center
UMAPS Research Colloquium Series
Firminus Mugumya and Justus Twesigye, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda
The African Studies Center is happy to invite you to participate in the first installment of the Winter 2022 UMAPS Research Colloquium Series. This colloquium series features presentations by members of the Winter 2022 cohort of the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars program.
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Firminus Mugumya, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda
School Retention in Uganda: Community Capitals and University-Community Engagement
Despite the roll-out of universal primary and secondary education in Uganda, alarming rates of school drop-out continue to undermine the country’s human capital and social development goals. The rate of primary school completion has remained poor at 61 percent while that of lower secondary school lags behind at 37.8 percent; girls are affected more than the boys. Conventional interventions to keep children in school by government and non-governmental agencies have failed to address the bottlenecks to total school enrolment and retention. This is mainly because they fail to build and sustain grassroots level engagements that harness community capitals. The community capitals framework postulates that all communities have assets which if effectively harnessed will contribute to addressing barriers to their social development and regenerating more capital or assets. This mixed methods research examined opportunities for building supportive and sustained engagement between the Makerere University social work faculty, community members and agencies in the context of social work labs to promote learning, teaching and research. It also aimed at building capacity for communities to build onto their existing capitals and sustainably address bottlenecks to school retention. Preliminary findings show that community members can ably articulate causes of the high school drop-out, identify community assets and resources that could be deployed to address this problem. However, they lacked effective organisation to achieve this goal. We also found that social work field placements provide timely opportunities for promoting lasting social work faculty-community engagement built around the community capitals framework.
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Justus Twesigye, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda
Reducing Youth Unemployment in Uganda: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Social Work
A central goal of social work is to create opportunities and career pathways for graduates to serve humanity. Social work practice is informed by a broad knowledge, and skill base as well as progressive values which are emphasized in its global agenda. As an applied social science, social work addresses social problems by working collaboratively with a range of clients that include individuals, groups, communities and organizations. Moreover, social workers may find employment in conventional and non-conventional jobs across a wide range of life domains. Despite this huge potential, a large number of youthful social workers in Uganda remain either unemployed or underemployed. This raises serious concerns regarding how experts of problem-solving for other people cannot help themselves. One of the promising approaches to solving this rampant youth unemployment among social workers is social entrepreneurship. As a non-conventional field of social work practice, social entrepreneurship requires an integration of primary social work philosophies and models with business principles, acumen and innovation. This paper explores the role of social entrepreneurship with the aim to document modalities, opportunities, and challenges for reducing unemployment among youthful social workers in Uganda. A qualitative study was conducted of eight social workers running social enterprises in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Preliminary findings show that social workers could create dignified and impactful employment based on social entrepreneurship. However, they require relevant support such as training tailored for this nascent field of practice.
Register to watch via Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ka-7PgfoQlyy7_MwfK1JDw
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Firminus Mugumya, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda
School Retention in Uganda: Community Capitals and University-Community Engagement
Despite the roll-out of universal primary and secondary education in Uganda, alarming rates of school drop-out continue to undermine the country’s human capital and social development goals. The rate of primary school completion has remained poor at 61 percent while that of lower secondary school lags behind at 37.8 percent; girls are affected more than the boys. Conventional interventions to keep children in school by government and non-governmental agencies have failed to address the bottlenecks to total school enrolment and retention. This is mainly because they fail to build and sustain grassroots level engagements that harness community capitals. The community capitals framework postulates that all communities have assets which if effectively harnessed will contribute to addressing barriers to their social development and regenerating more capital or assets. This mixed methods research examined opportunities for building supportive and sustained engagement between the Makerere University social work faculty, community members and agencies in the context of social work labs to promote learning, teaching and research. It also aimed at building capacity for communities to build onto their existing capitals and sustainably address bottlenecks to school retention. Preliminary findings show that community members can ably articulate causes of the high school drop-out, identify community assets and resources that could be deployed to address this problem. However, they lacked effective organisation to achieve this goal. We also found that social work field placements provide timely opportunities for promoting lasting social work faculty-community engagement built around the community capitals framework.
---
Justus Twesigye, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda
Reducing Youth Unemployment in Uganda: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Social Work
A central goal of social work is to create opportunities and career pathways for graduates to serve humanity. Social work practice is informed by a broad knowledge, and skill base as well as progressive values which are emphasized in its global agenda. As an applied social science, social work addresses social problems by working collaboratively with a range of clients that include individuals, groups, communities and organizations. Moreover, social workers may find employment in conventional and non-conventional jobs across a wide range of life domains. Despite this huge potential, a large number of youthful social workers in Uganda remain either unemployed or underemployed. This raises serious concerns regarding how experts of problem-solving for other people cannot help themselves. One of the promising approaches to solving this rampant youth unemployment among social workers is social entrepreneurship. As a non-conventional field of social work practice, social entrepreneurship requires an integration of primary social work philosophies and models with business principles, acumen and innovation. This paper explores the role of social entrepreneurship with the aim to document modalities, opportunities, and challenges for reducing unemployment among youthful social workers in Uganda. A qualitative study was conducted of eight social workers running social enterprises in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. Preliminary findings show that social workers could create dignified and impactful employment based on social entrepreneurship. However, they require relevant support such as training tailored for this nascent field of practice.
Register to watch via Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ka-7PgfoQlyy7_MwfK1JDw
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