Youths living around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park are generally coming up with some self employment through handicrafts shop as away of conserving the park. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is famous for having half of the population of the mountain gorillas in the whole world.

Conservation Through Public Health an NGO that acts as the voice of the poorest people among the poor helped in the launch of Bwindi Community Blog where the views, wishes and developments from the community members are put.

David Matsiko who is a Community Telecentre Officer working with Conservation Through Public Health moved to some of the handicrafts shop.

He was finding out if the CTPH Telecentre really changed lives of youths through internet. Out of 200 people trained since the Telecentre was established in 2005, 90% are youths.

A lot of benefits were realized by the youths after completing the computer training. Among them was that these people realized that CONSERVATION is a major thing that should not be ignored.

Our Community Telecentre Officer interviewed Ashaba Timothy the owner of Sue and Lee Craft shop and Alex Gabiito of Bwindi Porters’ Crafts Shop both youths and they all said that the internet has helped them to get market for their handicraft items. In addition, their shops have grown up because of the internet. Tourists who come to Bwindi leave behind their contacts and later book some crafts through the internet. This has created friendship between Bwindi people and the entire world.

Before the launch of CTPH Telecentre in 2005, people used to travel to Kabale, a bout 150 kilometers from Buhoma in search for the internet. The community is now happy that they have the internet in their community where they don’t even spend money on transport and most people now know how to use the computer for themselves other than some people doing it for them.