Mr. Prize Tayebwa
Prize Tayebwa is a development practitioner mainly with much passion for humanitarian work. Having graduated from Kyambogo University (2015) he joined the Uganda red cross society as a volunteer under the organisation’s Kampala East branch, where he implemented a number of projects/activities in emergency health, reproductive health, youth engagement, and membership development. He was also as the branch focal person in charge of first aid and emergency response. In July 2018, he was appointed as a branch manager in the same organisation for its Kampala West branch, a position he holds to date. As a branch manager, he has been at the centre stage of implementing the organisation’s strategic plan through resource mobilisation; finance management and accountability; community engagement and accountability;
volunteer management, youth engagement and membership development; administrative support to a number of project management, among others. He is also a trained National Disaster Response Team member (NDRT) in emergency shelter, emergency WASH, and Cash Transfer Programming/Cash Voucher Assistance (CTP/CVA). As branch manager based at headquarters, Tayebwa has been supporting other URCS’ functions such as the safer access framework and community engagement and accountability where he has taken part in the training of some staff and volunteers in the different branches of the organisation.
As a graduate of bachelor of development studies, he can say that the course has been so instrumental in his career in a number of ways.
The basic course in accounting has helped him to support the financial management function of the branch and of the organisation. The human resource management course (unit) has helped him in people management, where he is currently managing over 200 active volunteers, 5 staff at the branch, and hundreds of on-call volunteers. The other courses such as the introduction to international organisations, international law, among others basically opened his eyes to the rest of the world, no wonder, he had to choose one of the leading international humanitarian organisations for his career. Throughout the course, students were exposed to a number of challenges that have hampered the development of, especially developing countries. According to him, disasters are part of the reasons for this underdevelopment, and thus the need for urgent attention to disaster risk management and promotion of community resilience. Group presentations as a way of doing course works helped to boost his presentation skills, a reason he is now part of the organisation’s training team in different aspects. Generally, the DS course was well packaged enough to prepare graduates for the world of work. The only challenge is maybe dealing with the perception out there among potential employers, who still regard it as a mere course unit under the social work course. Hopefully, the current initiative will contribute to marketing of the course to help its graduates in accessing the job market, making it attractive to other students.