YOUTH-BASED NON GOVERNMENT ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT ROLES - A CASE OF STUDENTS FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

ABSTRACT
Students for Global Democracy empowered young people to assume leadership responsibilities and hold leaders accountable while helping to put right problems in their social, economic, political, and cultural environments. Public awareness on the numerous problems that affect communities was a key important initiative central and making achievement at all development fronts. Population was the biggest challenge that affected national development plans as resources became too scarce to meet their needs. An impoverished population cared very less about its health, environment situation, sanitation needs. Leadership was vital in ensuring peace and harmony through providing for its people.  Development was so uneven that urban areas benefited from it. But even in urban areas, development opportunities were a preserve of a handful of Ugandans. There is need to include all citizens in national planning goals, and put emphasis on agricultural development as it is the backbone of national economy. This solves both the problems of youth unemployment and famine.

M/S. OKURA RITA
LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE MANAGEMENT OF MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, BUSINESS SCHOOL

SECTION ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
This section provides the details about the background of the field attachment, objectives, the organization background, vision and mission of the organization and the structure of the organization.
1.1 Background of field attachment

Internship is relatively short term in nature with a primary focus on getting someone on the job training and taking what is leaRnt in the classroom and apply it to the real world.

In modern education, internship placement was very central in producing graduates, who are ready to work and compete favorably in the job market. It is a training program for someone whose primary interest is to develop a specific career (Montalvo Arts Centre, 2008).

1.2. Objective of field attachment
i.    To obtain hands-on experience from the organization of attachment.
ii.    To integrate and use knowledge learn from class in the real world situation.
iii.    To attain new skills relevant to programme studied at university.
iv.    To gain acquaintance of working in the areas of competencies.

Organization Background
Students for Global Democracy was founded in 2005 by a group of youthful, ambitious, and recent graduates, and got registered as a national non-government organization to inspire young people to adopt the culture of leadership, good governance, and sustainable development strategies, to enable them participate in the democratic processes and sustainable development; nationally and globally. The organization strategically positioned itself in the city center, where so many adventurous young people converge from different walks of life. Its offices are located at Kubiri Round-about, Haruna Towers, 4th floor, opposite Hass Petro Station, Bombo Road, Kawempe Division, Kampala (Students for Global Democracy, 2012).

1.2.1 Vision of Organization
 The vision of SGD-U is “An enlightened and empowered student community participating effectively in the democratization process and sustainable development of their communities, nation and world.”

1.2.2 Mission of the organization
The mission is to “Empower students with knowledge and skills of applying principles of democracy, governance and sustainability in personal, community and nation development.”

1.3.Organization structure
 At the top of the management hierarchy of SGD-U is the Board of Trustees, consisting of 5 carefully selected members, who have excelled in their professional careers, and proven integrity. The president of the organisation is the secretary to the board, technical staff, volunteers, Uganda National Students’ Committees (UNSC), District Students Leaders (DSL), Community and University Clubs (UC), and the Delegates Conference (DC). The Students for Global Democracy consists of nine members of staff, of which 6 are programme heads while the 3 or more, from time to time, depending on the volunteer admissions made into the organization.



SECTION TWO: ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN
2.0 Introduction
This section involves activities that were performed by the intern for example, Awareness campaigns, peace building, food, security, and development activities, partnership development activities among others as discussed below.
2.1 Awareness Campaigns
Awareness Campaigns were conducted by intern cross-cuttingly or across all SGD-U programmes. The intern distributed and presented information on posters about environment sanitation, non-violence and entrepreneurship; registered workshop participants, wrote minutes, and activity reports.
2.2 Peace Building
The intern engaged students and communities into constructive civic engagement in relentless attempts to avoid violence. This involved counseling and providing information on decision making, problem-solving strategies, community discussions on non-violence approaches, and inter-school and inter-university student meetings on goal-setting.
2.3 Sustainable Agriculture Practices, Food Security, and Development
The intern trained farming communities on viable farming techniques that required limited land-use, while guaranteeing high yields, and crop seeds in famine-threatened regions, aimed at averting food insecurity. She was also involved in distribution of viable tree seedlings and supervising tree-planting.

2.4  Sensitization on Environment, Health, and Sanitation
Owing to the increasing global warming effects like high temperatures, the intern was involved in identifying environment zones at risk, and sensitized people there on the extent of environment degradation and subsequently called for action. She participated in mobilizing communities to clean their immediate environments to minimize the spread of tropical diseases, such as malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, cholera, and dysentery, which were so fatal to children and their mothers. In schools, the hand-washing campaign was done.
Figure 3 Community Cleaning

Interns Participating in Community Cleaning Exercise
2.5 Partnership Development
The intern participated in management of correspondences between SGD-U and its development partners, involving dispatching and receiving mails.

SECTION THREE: LESSONS, EXPERIENCES, AND SKILLS
3.0 Introduction
This section consists of the lessons, experiences, and skills the intern attained during the internship.
3.1 Lessons
3.1.1 Ignorance as a cause of human suffering
 The intern learnt that Ignorance was the root cause for all human problems, including environment degradation and global warming, acceptance of the social, political, economic, and cultural wrongs as rights.
3.1.2 Capacity building and awareness as a community need
 More so, the intern learnt that Capacity building and awareness was a continuous need necessary in the efforts towards poverty alleviation, ensuring proper hygiene and sanitation, and food security.
3.1.3 Access to information was not guaranteed
The intern leant that access to information was a right not guaranteed despite the relevant role it plays in organizing people for development. Communities found themselves in a very poor state to afford communication gadgets.
3.1.4 Violence and Peace Building  
She noticed that, the country has since had no viable and strong conflict resolution strategies to guarantee the `people of Uganda a sustainable peace.
3.1.5 Population, Food Security and Welfare
 Population was a big determinant of food security and welfare. She leant that through effective national plans, investment prioritization, and resources allocation based on real needs of the population if revised seriously via financial accountability, the welfare of most Ugandans would be guaranteed.

3.2 Experiences
3.2.1 Working under pressure
The intern gained the experience of working under pressure, within a given schedule, and with minimum supervision.
3.2.2 Community Mobilization
The intern gained the experience of mobilizing people for development activities like community cleaning, and tree-planting.
3.2.3 Designing activity plans
The intern also gained the experience of designing activity plans in line with SGD-U work-plan, involving drawing budgets, and implementations.
3.2.4 Record keeping and financial accountability
The intern gained experience in record-keeping and financial accountability involved in monitoring and evaluation.
3.3 Skills
3.3.1 Time management skill
The intern attained the skill of time management necessary in achieving personal and organization goals as planned.
3.3.2 Planning skills
She attained critical planning skills, where I was able to identify priorities, allocate resources, and coordinate efforts towards achieving the plans.
3.3.3 Communication skills
The intern attained effective communication skills, such as presentation of minutes of previous meetings and public speaking, involving preparation of speeches, adopting body language, and appropriate communication tools.
3.3.4 Interpersonal and social skills
The intern attained interpersonal skills in relation with colleagues at work and community relations, involving communication with respect, relevant to given age-group and social status, attending to work assignments, and providing appropriate feed-backs.


SECTION FOUR: CHALLENGES
4.0 Introduction
This section discusses challenges that affected the quality work of the organization during the placement applicable to both the organization and the intern.
4.1 Organisation challenges
4.1.1 Limited Funding
There was low progress of programme activities due to limited funding. A lot of time must be taken to develop new development initiatives attractive to donors and subsequently develop concept papers to be submitted to funding agencies.
4.1.2 High expectations from interns
The organization expected much from the interns and this hindered proper running of organization activities since the interns were lacking a lot of experience from the beginning.
4.2.Challenges faced by intern.
4.2.1 Lack of communication
There was lack of communication on the part of the organization officials. They often declined to reveal to the intern information about forthcoming organization activities.
4.2.2 Poor attitude towards development
The communities lacked positive attitude towards activities that the intern introduced to them, like general cleaning, tree planning, even if such programmes benefitted them directly. They always looked at financial rewards as the way only motivating.
4.2.3 Costly.
It was costly to travel to the field and to meet accommodation fees as the internship costs were born on the intern.

SECTION FIVE: CONCLUSIONS
Introduction
This section shows the details of the internship conclusion, recommendation both to the Organization and the University
5.0 Conclusions
Much as the internship training had a number of challenges such as poor attitude towards development, lack of communication and many others, the program activities of the organization however helped put my abilities into practice and has also enhanced my leadership qualities and mobilization skills for development. 
5.1 Recommendations to the organization
The organization should create awareness in the community by educating the public about their activities so that the community people get interest in taking part of the activity.
The organization should look for other alternative sources of funding instead of relying on one source of funding. This can be done by identifying more fundable projects and write proposals to those organizations that can fund them.
It should network their activities with other non government organization that have similar programs like them so that their impact is felt.
The recommendations to the University
The university supervisors should improve on their supervision by increasing o the number of times the supervisor visit their interns.
The university should also get involved in the finding internship placements for their students because most of the students do their internship training in areas of that do not benefit them.
The university should own projects that equip the students with practical skills other than sending them to organisations that may not help them with any practical knowledge at all.
The university should come up with strong students’ clubs that is concerned with the placement of students in their internship so that there is closer monitoring of the entire program.