Hand in Hand

Hand in Hand was made up of 12 25-minute episodes with performances by an ensemble cast of Ugandan actors. It addressed topics such as marketing and bookkeeping as well as environmental, health, security, and gender issues. Central themes included vocational training, women's rights/sexism, alcoholism, and HIV/AIDS. However, the main theme of "Hand in Hand" was craftsmanship and it was designed to promote vocational training. The show worked to dispel the stigma associated with vocational education and training by influencing the opinions of youths, their parents and guardians, teachers, as well as career counsellors. The show hoped to do this by creating role models in the drama series that the audience could look up to.

The series told the story of Veronica, a young attractive metalworker, who needed premises to set up a workshop. The show highlighted her struggles and her path to success in establishing her workshop. To read more about the show, visit the Great Lakes Film Production website.

According to organisers, the show was unique at the time, because it addressed these issues through the medium of film and television, when film and media were not yet a key aspect of Ugandan culture. Ellen Görlich, the show's producer and head of Great Lakes Film Production, had been working in recent years to make the medium more well-known in Uganda.

The show offered its audience guiding lessons, including following:

• Marketing one's business (how to get clients and keep them).
• Starting a business and bureaucracies surrounding the practice (trading licenses, establishing capital, LIRA, banking among others).
• Organising a business (proper bookkeeping, filing systems among others).
• Time keeping.
• Safety precautions at the workplace (dealing with electrical machinery).
• Energy conservation (use of alternative sources of energy).
• Presentation of ones products (food presentation, smooth finishing of carpentry works).
• Environmental conservation (use of chemicals in the salon, use of kaveeras in business, dumping of industrial waste).
• Generation of conflict (dealing with new and old technology to improve business).
• Proper hygiene when handling food (restaurant business).
• Gender bias (women doing "men's jobs" such as metalwork).
• Health issues in business (dealing with terminal illness such as HIV/AIDS).
• Proper training in various professions (need for practical vocational training).

The initiative ran parallel to KfW Entwicklungsbank’s vocational training programmes, which promoted the establishment and further development of vocational schools, teacher training institutions, and certification centres. “Hand in Hand" was backed up by an extensive marketing campaign with short films and newspaper adverts about successful manual tradesmen. Six companies, including Coca-Cola and Uganda Telecom, sponsored the series.

Economic development, Education, Youth.

Great Lakes is a Film Production company in Uganda established in 2002 with the aim to produce documentaries, feature films, soap operas, corporate videos, image films, music videos, and commercials.

The “Hand in Hand" initiative was prompted by the shortage of qualified workers and the lack of employment opportunities for the growing number of school-leavers. The exodus from subsistence farming made unemployment worse. However, most young people did not really see vocational training as a way of finding a job and Ugandan youth were seen to only enrol for vocational education and training courses as a last resort. However, it was indicated that not only were graduates from these institutions able to co-exist with those from the formal sector, but they could also make a good living. The producers hoped the series would send a message that craftsmanship did not have to be an alternative career as many people took it to be. “It was a career like any other. If one took their work seriously they would be very successful in whatever they chose to do."