Success stories
They started where you are
Three graduates who arrived without tools, without contacts and, in one case, without papers. Here's where the course took them.
I used to have nothing to do.
Oliver Zola
Kazo graduate
Oliver Zola: from selling shoes on the street to the workshop floor
I used to have nothing to do.
Oliver Zola wanted more than washing cars and selling second-hand shoes on the street. As a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, his options were limited. He heard about Kazo during English classes at another organisation.
He didn't know what welding was and had never held a power tool. But he had two things going for him: he was young, and he wanted to learn.
At Kazo he learned to strike an arc, read a drawing and turn it into steel. He now works on the workshop floor with a trade in his hands. Like many welders in Kampala, he earns more than someone with an office job, because there are fewer of them.
Pius Okoloi
Kazo graduate
Pius Okoloi: from Pallisa to a Kampala fabrication yard
Pius Okoloi grew up in Pallisa, in eastern Uganda, with two brothers and three sisters. His father farmed and his mother taught school. He did well at school and reached A level.
Then he faced the choice many school leavers face: wait for an office job that might never come, or learn a trade industry is hiring for. He chose welding. At Kazo he trained in the booth and learned to read engineering drawings, and he now works in a Kampala fabrication yard.
Allan Namwanja
Kazo graduate
Allan Namwanja: a trade he can build a life on
Allan came to Kazo with no welding experience. Like every student, he started on a Saturday morning with a helmet and his first arc.
Two semesters later, after months in the booth learning to weld to American Welding Society standards, he left with a certificate and a trade in his hands.
Start the way they did
Every one of them walked in on an ordinary morning without knowing what a weld was. Your first step is a free Saturday session.