During the AIDO Tour of Duty to Uganda in May 2025, Queen Mother Dr. Angela Soong and Chief Neculai Vintila Emanoil, donated sewing machines to the Kumam Cultural Heritage. The machines were a practical first step towards skills, livelihoods, dignity, and self-reliance.

For many young people across Kumam land and the wider Teso region, access to education, employment, vocational training, and digital skills remains limited. Poverty is a major driver of school dropout, while early marriage, teenage pregnancyand drug abuse can further restrict opportunities. At the same time, many rural young people remain outside employment, education, or training, leaving them dependent on vulnerable informal livelihoods.

These challenges make community-based skills development not simply an opportunity, but an urgent need. That is why Queen Mother Dr. Angela Soong and Chief Neculai Vintila Emanoil have pledged to go further by establishing a Community Skill Center in Teso.

The envisioned center will create a pathway for girls, young women, young mothers, and other members of the community to acquire practical skills such as tailoring, entrepreneurship, agribusiness, digital literacy, and other livelihood skills, equipping them not only to find work, but to create it.

The goal is to turn potential into opportunity, a sewing machine can make a garment, and skill can create an income.
The equipment are only the beginning.

The vision is a Teso where young people are equipped with the skills, confidence, and opportunities to build their own futures and this is the spirit of the AIDO Tour of Duty: coming home, giving back, empowering communities, and creating a legacy that continues long after the journey ends.