Professor Tom Baum (far left) on one of the Ssese Island beaches
Professor Tom Baum (far left) on one of the Ssese Island beaches
Professor Tom Baum of the Department of Human Resource Management recently took part in the final component of the British Council-funded DELPHI project which has linked Strathclyde to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda for the past three years. The focus has been to support our counterparts in the development of campus and outreach programmes in tourism which are relevant to the needs of the Ugandan industry.
Professor Baum partnered former Strathclyde colleague, Rory MacLellan (now with Edinburgh Napier University) in two workshops during the visit. The first was for academic staff at Makerere and the second for enterprise owners and managers located in the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. The focus of the workshop was on people management and marketing skills relevant to small island economies.
Professor Baum commented, "The Ssese Islands are a particularly challenging location for tourism development. Eighty four beautiful islands, of which 64 are inhabited, they have natural white beaches and boutique, if somewhat basic, resorts along the shoreline. At the same time, away from the beaches, the islands are also home to communities with some of the most severe social and economic deprivation in the country.
"Over half the population are under 15 and, of these, only about 10% attend schooling of any kind. The rates of HIV are the highest in the country and, therefore, probably on par with the worst found anywhere in Africa. Opportunities to break the poverty cycle are few and far between and a more effective tourism sector offers one such route, particularly for women. However, most employers we worked with highlighted their inability to recruit local workers into their businesses."