Meet Andrew Rugambage, a born job creator

Meet Andrew Rugambage, a born job creatorRwanda as a country is full of graduates, at different levels, who seek white collar jobs to make ends meet. The young and old alike, flood the labour market waving academic certificates searching for jobs, which seldom give them satisfaction. It is evident that white collar jobs are fading away, especially for graduates who specialised in non practical subjects. There is, need to start up projects or schools that create jobs for many, and more particularly the youth. Vocational educational training is thought to be a panacea in a society, whose people risk facing gross unemployment, in the near future. There is no doubt that the products of our schools and universities, inevitably, can’t create, but seek for jobs. We thus need big brains to start up vocational schools, to provide the nation’s youth with prerequisite skills, vital for creating jobs. The Sunday Times’ Stephen Rwembeho caught up with Andrew Rugambage who is imparting vocational skills to youths at his vocational school in Kibungo town in Ngoma district. Astonishingly, Rugambage, 40, holds a diploma in Accounts and business management, but has never sought for salaried employment anywhere, ever since he graduated. Below he narrates the story:It’s now over 16 years since I graduated as an accountant, but I have never bothered to ask for employment. My colleagues started applying everywhere immediately after our graduation, but I never bought the idea. I instead started thinking about what I could do, to earn a living, without waiting for a given institution to employ me. I developed an idea of facilitating movements of goods and couriers, to different parts of Rwanda from Kigali city. This was quite a new thing, and I enjoyed the monopoly, hence making huge profits. I used the money to explore some other project areas that also hiked my working capital. I bought three houses; one in Kigali, and two in Kibungo. Today, I am building a complex vocational school that will accommodate over 1000 students from all over the country. Even though, one needs money to keep in business, the idea of starting a vocational school was purely developed on humanitarian grounds. You know I hate to see young boys and girls on streets, redundant and indulging in criminal activities. It is a sad reality that unemployed youth, smoke Marijuana, drink illicit alcohol and end up in promiscuous activities that lead them to catching HIV/AIDS. You see the majority of our school leavers don’t get jobs upon graduation, this will worsen as time goes on when university graduates increase in number. There are the drop-outs that may end up as a waste, a situation that can’t be tolerated in a nation that cherishes its human resource. Our country’s economy is heavily dependent on its human resource, which is why we need to develop it at all costs. I am thus happy that I have managed to come up with a school that provides fundamental skills to over 200 youths every year. For purposes of serving all talents and creating enough space for job creation, our school offers a variety of courses to students.A student in our school, graduates with fundamental skills in; motor mechanics, electronics, driving and welding. This gives a wide range of choice, when he or she goes out to start working. We made a careful translation of teaching materials into Kinyarwanda, so that the materials become user friendly. Teaching in a foreign language doesn’t necessarily suit all levels of learners, so for purposes of being accommodative, we have translated different versions of didactic materials. The fact that a developing country like ours needs skilled youths cannot thus be overemphasised. It is vital for national growth and development, something that we cannot gloss over. It is vital to note that the availability of jobs and opportunities tend to make the youths of a country more productive and allow them to contribute meaningfuly to their economies. Indeed when jobs are provided for the youth it helps in the reduction of crimes in a country. I have the conviction that the long term solution to unemployment in the country lies in equipping the youth with modern, market driven technical and vocational skills. It is against such background that I will spare no effort to expand the vocational school I started.