Thursday, 14.3. – Day 0: The longest Day

Pickup at the Sheraton at 7:40. We sprint through the remainders of the night’s thunderstorm and pouring rain into Oliver’s pickup and crouch into front and back with 5 other students and our luggage. Luckily, the ride to Hotel Africana is not that long and Oliver knows some tricky shortcuts to circumvent the Kampala morning traffic jam.

It is good that we are there so early, as we still have to do some fine-tuning on the arrangement of tables and chairs in the three rooms we have booked so that it is perfect for the event we have planned. At 9AM, we are more or less done and the first students arrive and register.

Around 9:45 I am getting a little nervous, since only two banks have appeared so far. This does not change at 10, our officially planned kick-off time for the workshop and neither at 10:15. We decide to delay the kick-off by 30min and again by 15min, so finally start with the welcome at 10:45 and three banks being present.

During the presentations, we welcome one more bank and move over into our networking session with four banks in total. In groups, the students move from bank to bank and for the first time have a direct interaction with their potential future employers – a very exciting moment for all participants.

Opening the session with Geoffrey

Luckily, we see two more banks appearing later during the workshop, so that we extend our networking event into lunchtime until after 2PM.

Joseph giving insight into Barclays

Doreen and Solomy from Stanbic surrounded by students

Intensive discussions with Rachel from Citi

Reading from the faces and comments we receive from the students and the banks, the workshop proves to be a full success – everyone is very excited and impressed about the opportunity to meet with each other, and we realise this is the first time ever that such an event is being conducted in Uganda. So we are really pioneers!

After lunch, it is time to say good bye to 'our' students from MMU, since they are leaving to Fort Portal on the same day. So we use the time to have some final memory pictures on the lawn of Hotel Africana.

Saying good bye to 'our' students

There is not much time left until our afternoon cocktail reception at the Emin Pasha Hotel begins, so we directly move over and have a coffee there.

Around 5PM, our guests join us for the closing event and we have a beautiful evening with speeches from the German embassy, the Vice chancellor of the Mountains of the Moon University, followed by inspiring discussions among all participants from the university, GIZ, the German embassy and participants from KfW.

Welcome reception with MMU, GIZ, KfW and the German embassy

The 'official' part with the German embassy