Companionship of Works Association (COWA)

In a country where agriculture remains the single largest source of employment, one Ugandan nonprofit has built what amounts to a talent pipeline for the agricultural sector, and it is doing so by recruiting from the population most employers overlook: vulnerable youth, young women, and even juvenile offenders passing through the country’s remand system. The organization is the Companionship of Works Association (COWA). Founded in 1988 and formally registered as an NGO in 1994, COWA has spent nearly four decades building what its Executive Director, Chrispine Wanyahoro, describes as a deliberately narrow strategy: turn vulnerability into employability, fast.