Leadership & Career Development Symposium inspires young professionals to take action

“The experience I got from the workshop was great. Topicssuch as drafting application letters, curriculum vitae, interview code of conduct, and communication skills were interesting. I learnt some new things that I always took for granted but are important.–by Grace Otto

On July 27th, 2011 URF Kampala chapter hosted the Leadership and Career Development Symposium which brought together young professionals from around Uganda to them with essential leadership skills. The symposium was part of the new Leadership Institute series launched in the summer of 2011.

Local and international speakers presented on a series of topics including: leadership skills, professional networking, launching a successful business, CV/resume writting, job applications and interviews, coping with unemployment, stress and time management, career planning, business counselling – idea generation, business plan writing, etc, team work, management and administration, and several other topics.

Below some of the attendees share their experiences of the workshop:

“The experience I got from the workshop was great.
Communication by Sarah Munaba had subtopics such as drafting application letters, curriculum vitae, interview code of conduct, and communication skills. I learnt some new things that I always took for granted but are important.

What captivated my mind was the speech by Alfred Balinda and Teddy. He taught us of how the world has evolved through Stone Age, industrial age and the current information age. Then the distorted education system we have got. You know each of us goes through school but at the end of the day we are all aiming to work in offices and not thinking of creating our own businesses and the end of the day there are many unemployed youth roaming the streets.

I learnt that success is developed in the mind and that the skills and right information will make you successful.
That trading time for money, financial freedom come from leveraging. We were advised to read, Cash Flow Quodrant by R. Kyosaikye. I was fortunate enough to read that book and saw how the rich dad and poor dad advise impacted their sons lives etc.

I learnt that if you have a fixed income you have got a fixed future why? Because you are employed for the whole of your life and after retirement you just go back to the village and wait for you last days on earth. You don’t have time to plan for after retirement.

Networking and e-commerce can create you leveraging. To be successful you have to have a belief, be focused, commitment and determination. Then the time bank account, while an investor is living eleven years in a day how many days or hours am I living in a day? That’s a great challenge and why can’t I be like Mukwano or Mulwana, bill gates etc. How best can i use my time to benefit me. 

Then the speech from my learned friend Fred Ssemwanga, he talk to us about constitutional matters and what every person was supposed to know since they have a right to know. The next facilitator talked about the importance of Gender mainstreaming and its being essential.

Then followed the topic on, “how to source for project funds, the main content of a proposal, size of the proposal. There was a lot to learn. My wish is if this kind of workshop could go on every month and we implement whatever we have learnt, then we stand to be achievers.” –Grace Otto

“I attended part of it but what I got was so productive.  Learned about communication as being important and key to business success; also how to write a wining application letter.  I can now teach others, especially my sister.”–Juliet Namuli