In March 2022, the CSO community platform members in Wolaita Sodo held a community conversation on two thematic issues. The Sodo platform established and supported by British Counsel's implementing partner Emmanuel Development Association (EDA) is comprised of migrants, prospective migrants, and community representatives who are working to bring out grassroots voices on issues of migration of management. In the conversation, the platform members discussed ways of enhancing resilience through job creation in Wolaita Sodo to reduce irregular migration and ways to improve the operations of private employment agencies.
Under the first theme, members of the platform assessed the strengths and weaknesses of government employment schemes in the context of Wolaita Sodo and developed recommendations that among others include: the importance of working to change the attitudes and skills of youth and ways of improving the micro and small enterprise job-creating schemes by taking consideration of the local situation. The second theme dealt with ways of improving the work of private employment agencies, the participants mainly discussed the limitation in finding foreign employment through the agencies, the participants mainly discussed the limitation in finding foreign employment the agencies and formulated a number of recommendations regarding the issuance of travel documents and training that is offered to prospective migrant workers.