Vocational Training Center

PTPL supports a vocational school for young adults to learn skills to enable them to support themselves. The school is based in Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania, which creates some problems because of the instability of the economy and difficulty in obtaining supplies. That said, however, the vocational school has been a success and has expanded from the original format of teaching skills only to young men to now include young women among the students.

The school teaches five main skills: carpentry, sewing, knitting, baking, soap making and batik. The money that PTPL sends for this program is used to buy supplies and partially pay the teachers’ salaries. The majority of  the products are sold at low cost to local villagers. Money earned is used to purchase more supplies for the school.

In March of 2006, PTPL helped the school buy two additional sewing machines, making a total of five.  There was enough money left to buy five rolls of poplin material.

A report from the last quarter of 2006 gives an example of the success of this program.  There were 29 students in the carpentry program and 18 in the sewing group. No number of students is given for the bakery, but a total of 18,000 “loaves” of bread were baked. The carpentry students made 50 chairs, 18 tables, 37 stools and 40 benches. The sewing group completed 24 knitted sweaters, 40 baby blankets, 50 shirts and 40 pairs of shorts. 

The 2006 year end report states that the goal of the vocational school is “to train Congolese refugees to achieve self-sufficiency. This program is helping to teach techniques and reduce unemployment.”

The year end report also tells of plans to add two programs:  a soap shop and a batik fabric dyeing shop.

During 2007, PTPL was able to send money to the vocational school – in response to a request – to enable the building of a lockable shelter to store supplies and products. We recently received a request for eight additional sewing machines.