PDTU & FAQ

Bwire Silver Ochiondo is a driver trainer at the Professional Driver Training Uganda (PDTU) project under Safe Way Right Way. Bwire has been a Heavy Goods driver for 20 years and would never have imagined himself as a driver trainer.

“I had never touched a laptop before, but being a trainer made me more used to laptops, and my sons who have done more school than me helped me so they were supportive.”

Bwire is part of a team of five trainers at the Safe Way Right Way professional driver training centre which has been set up as part of the PDTU project. The project has trained a total of 16 trainers to deliver truck driver training to the level defined by the EAC curriculum. Together, they are the only trainers in the region to date, able to deliver this standard of professional driver training and is part of an effort to build the capacity of providers in Uganda, in preparation of the adoption of this curriculum as a regional standard.

Bwire grew up in rural Eastern Uganda close to the Kenyan border. He was brought up by his mother, his father having sadly died when Bwire was a young boy. After completing school, he joined a transport company as a sweeper in a workshop, then became a turn boy or driver’s assistant which is how Bwire learned to drive trucks. In 1995 he started driving trucks on his own throughout East Africa. In 2001 he left is driving job after being in a serious road traffic crash in which he was badly injured. It was two years before Bwire started driving trucks again. In February 2018, Bwire saw the PDTU advert in the newspaper asking for new trainers, and he decided to apply.

“I wanted to keep working, but not do the long journeys that most truck drivers have to do or have the stress, working under pressure and the roads are dangerous…I knew from my years of driving how few people had received any training and wanted to give them more.”

Since Bwire completed his training in July 2019, he has trained approximately 30 truck drivers, three of whom have been women.

“I see the drivers at the start of their careers like I was years ago. I like that the job is advancing my skills and that I don’t have to do long journeys in the truck. I would like to train as many Ugandan’s as possible before I retire so I can help reduce the accidents on our roads.”

Bwire is motivated to be a part of the PDT-U and hopes the impact of the project improves people’s understanding of how dangerous it is to put pressure on drivers on the road.

“I hope that the [drivers] I am training will get the chance to grow old and retire and see their grandchildren and they won’t die on the roads.”

Safe Way Right Way will be holding its first driver graduation ceremony on the 13th of November 2019, at the MUBS rugby grounds to celebrate the people that have taken on the challenge to Proffesionalise Heavy Goods and Passenger Service Vehicle driving in East Africa.