This initiative uses an entertaining-yet-educational show, broadcast on TV, to explore the theme of craftsmanship and to promote vocational training. The show aims to dispel the stigma associated with vocational education and training by influencing the opinions of young people and their parents, guardians, and teachers, as well as career counsellors. It hopes to do this by creating role models in the drama series that the audience can look up to.

Specifically, the show is about Veronica, a young attractive metalworker, who needs premises (land and a structure) to set up a workshop. "Hand in Hand" highlights her struggles and her path to success in establishing her workshop. Some of the specific topics explored in the series include:

• Marketing one's business (how to get clients and keep them)
• Starting a business and bureaucracies surrounding the practice (trading licenses, establishing capital, Low Income Ratepayer Assistance (LIRA), banking, etc.).
• Organising a business (proper bookkeeping, filing system among others).
• Time keeping.
• Safety precautions in the workplace (dealing with electrical machinery).
• Energy conservation (use of alternative sources of energy).
• Presentation of one's products (food presentation, smooth finishing of carpentry works).
• Environmental conservation (use of chemicals in the salon, use of kaveeras in business, dumping of industrial waste).
• Dealing with new and old technology to improve business.
• Proper hygiene when handling food (restaurant business).
• Gender bias (women doing "men's jobs" such as metalwork).
• Health issues in business (dealing with terminal illness such as HIV/AIDS).
• Proper training in various professions (need for practical vocational training).

The initiative runs parallel to KfW Entwicklungsbank’s vocational training programmes, which promote the establishment and further development of vocational schools, teacher training institutions, and certification centres.

"Hand in Hand" is backed up by an extensive marketing campaign with short films about successful manual tradesmen and newspaper adverts. Six companies, including Coca-Cola and Uganda Telecom, are sponsoring the series. According to the organisers, the show has been a huge success and the actors are already household names in Uganda. Surveys are currently being carried out to assess its impact on the image of vocational training.

Economic Development, Youth.

The initiative was prompted by what organisers identify as the shortage of qualified workers and the lack of employment opportunities for the growing number of school-leavers. The exodus from subsistence farming, they claim, is making the problem of unemployment worse. However, most young people do not really see vocational training as a way of finding a job, and Ugandan youth are seen to only enrol for vocational education and training courses as a last resort. However, organisers claim that experience indicates that not only are graduates from these institutions able to co-exist with those from the formal sector, but they can also make a good living.

In short, the producers hope the series will send a message that craftsmanship does not have to be an alternative career as many people take it to be. "It is a career like any other. If one takes their work seriously they will be very successful in whatever they chose to do."