Empowering of the women of Cabaceira Pequena

Finally we got some movement in the lodge. Even without having to fire people because of incompetence. Now staff is being employed by other hotels. This is very possive sign to see that Mozambique is developing and trained staff in necessary in more locations.
With getting more vacancies at the lodge, more oppurtunities start to rise for other people within Cabaceira Pequena. Although we have tried looking for more staff before, especially women, we didn't get a lot of applications.
But something has changed in the last year. We don't know what, but now the women break free from their husbands. The husbands don't see any possibilities for working at the lodge, since they don't know enough Portuguese, but they do see the other families getting richer. Even the families where the women work at the lodge and the husband continues fishing. And although the women make money, they still stay with their husbands...
So now they let their wifes also apply for jobs. And having just one vacancy at the laundry, 10 women show up, all with mega great potential. Speaking Portuguese, educated, willing to work... we felt sorry we didn't have more vacancies!
Instead of sending them away after selecting one, we started training the other ones as well. Some as a back up team in the kitchen One as a back up for the restaurant. Some as back up for the laundry. And all of them are being trained to do massages. So we have a big back up team there. Also we started with teaching them English.
We almost can't wait for more people to leave and get starting with these empowered women!

House for elderly/teachers

The house we bought for the poor elderly without any family to sustain them, but who didn't want to move in, is now occupied by a teacher. When teacher are being transferred to a new village to teach, they don't get facilities from the government. They get small wages and have to live far away from their houses and families. The communitie should provide housing or they rent a room of part of a house from one of the villagers. Now that the house we have bought is available, the house will be used for teachers or other government service people that are their to work and develop the community. Without having to pay rent.
And even so... no teachers wanted to live there in the beginning. For them it was too far from the school (5 min walk). They wanted to live next to the school. At the moment a new teacher liked the quiet location and she is happyly living there.
For us a good lesson, that just buying a house and giving housing for free is not always what they want. Even the most poorest. Although it is for free, it must contain all requested facilities and the right location, otherwise they rather pay....

The girls

When we did the exam with all the children of the 7th grade of the primairy school, two girls had the best results of the whole class Rabia and Muahasane. Sadly Muahasane directly quit the project because she got married with a man from Nacala. Rabia left the project because when applying for the secondairy school in Mossuril, she was not allowed to wear a headscarf. She refused and went back to her home. She didn't feel welcome.

In May we invited her for chat at the lodge. We heard that although she had plans to get married, she decided not to and wasn't doing anything at that time. Since we are convinced of her intelligence and possibilties, we asked her what her plans were for the furture. She didn't really have any.

So we offered her 2 possibilities: 1. start working at the lodge as an internship. Making half the salary and start working at all the departments to see which would fit the best. In the mean time learn English. 2. start at an other secondairy school in Nampula or Ilha de Moçambique, where there are no problems with wearing a headscarf. Officially it is illegal to prohibit the students to wear it, but when allowed although you are adviced not to, doesn't make you feel welcome.

First Rabia directly decided to start working at the lodge. That would bring in money directly and she could start building her future in Cabaceira. We adviced her to think about it a few day, talk it over with her family and friends. We hoped they would convince her that the secondairy school would be a good investment for her future and she could be a teacher or a nurse....

After a few days she came back and she changed her mind! She wants to go to school in Nampula. So now they are investigating the different schools in Nampula. It looks like she choose this one. Let's hope this time all will go well!! Fingers crossed...

Future of the orphanage

And what about the next phase when the orphanage is ready. What will happen with the building? What are the next steps in the project?

Fist we will do an investigation of the orphans that live in Cabaceira Pequena with family or friends. We think about 30 children will have this status. Each individual will be supported depending on there age and needs in the area of cloths, food, housing and education. For each subject a proper plan shall be made. The current guardians shall be interviewed at together with them a plan shall be made. This will never with hold giving money, but it will always be in direct support of the child, like buying 3 times a year a proper set of cloths, paying for the studies and giving them at least one proper meal a day.

For the education this will depend on their age. For the young children the idea is to start a nursery school in the building. The orphans will be the first to attent and other young children of Cabaceira will be added with a maximum of 15 per group.

For the children who are in the age of going to the primairy school, the project will provide in all the facilities necesarry to attent and monitor their progress at the school. After graduation at the primairy school the orphans will get the same help as the current children who attent the secondairy school.

Together with Ska Mouza we will find the proper way to attend to the orphans she wants to help.

Orphanage

Almost getting to an end. The constuction of the orphanage. It has not been an easy job... Everything is made locally as much as possible. The concrete blocks were made at the village, the sand was taken by tractor from the mainland (to prevent erosion on the Cabaceira Island), all the material was brought in by sailboats and all the workers are from Cabaceira Pequena to keep the money as much as possible within the community...

What is missing at the moment are the doors and windows, but they are ready at the workshop of the carpenter. They just need to be put in. And the finishing of the floors. This takes again more sand then was expected and needs more help from the tractor, which is broken at the moment... but it will finish!! We expect in August to have the inauguration.



Primairy school

The primairy school is almost ready and it has not been an easy job to organize it. The first intention and request was only to donate the roof. Since the whole community choose this project as the first thing they wanted to finish at there village, we bought all material and paid the carpenter. Within 4 weeks this was done.

Then everything stopped. So I started knocking on doors of the Director, the leaders of the community and the Director of Education of the district. Nobody gave me a good anwer. Everybody thought that the community would contribute together with bringing in sand, water and stones to finish the school in the traditional way, but nobody in the village felt like doing this.

Then the leaders came back to me: can you buy us cement and cal (limestone powder) to make the walls more strong. Ok, so with traditional boats I brought in cement from Ilha and the cal was bought within the village. After that... nothing happend.

Then I started asking questions again. When are you going to continue? We need a constuctor to build it. Ok, I will negociate witht he contructor and then he can start. Then one day the community started collecting sand, rocks and water. One day... so the constructor could start with building, but after 3 days all material collected by the villagers was finished. And then .... nothing happend.

Again I started asking questions: when are you going to continue? No answer. Then came the request: can we use the tractor to bring in sand and stones. I said the tractor is very expensive, it would be better to hire women to do this job and they will be paid money for food for their family. They didn't agree, but gave in and we started with this.

After a request for windows and doors, which we bought on Ilha and having doors stolen again by members of the community, we are now almost at the end of the job of finishing the school. We hope the inauguration can be in August.

Ofcourse a lot more need to be done before it will be a proper school. One of the things is the furniture, but first we need to sit down again with the community, maybe they have other project that are more important for them.

Best Students

The boys are doing very well. With visiting the secundairy school during the half year evaluation of the project the Director of the school was full of compliments about the results and the will of the boys to learn. They were even selected for the school football team and invited for a match in Nampula.
They even don't want to go back the weekends to Cabaceira Pequena. When offered a lift, they refused and prefered to stay in Mossuril with their friends.

Only sad story was the 1st of June. At this special holiday for all the children of Mozambique, the children are treated with gifts, new cloths and nice food. At around 15.00 they go to their school to show their new cloths and bring something for the teacher (money or some food). Normally they get a nice lunch at the school as well.

The boys from Cabaceira left the school before this day. They didn't have anything to offer the Director. I was not informed about this tradition...So the boys were expelled from school for a day. Their parents also didn't provide them with anything. Next year we know...