The Happy Africa Foundation | Always moving forward. Always giving back.

…Mozambique

The cornerstone of the project in Vilanculos is a rural preschool that provides free early education to nearly seventy children. The Mozambican government does not fund any preschools, so most children will have received no formal education before starting at primary school. This is a severe disadvantage for Mozambican children, as they will spend most of their critical early years of development helping their family members with chores and menial housework rather than being introduced to critical early learning skills such as form recognition, group play, and manual dexterity.

The preschool is managed by three local teachers with the support of the volunteers. The children receive lessons in both Portuguese and English to introduce them to early learning subjects such as letters, numbers, shapes and colours. The development of the children has been remarkable; of the class that just graduated into primary school we have witnessed outstanding results amongst the children that had attended preschool in contrast to their peers who did not.

Our volunteers have already put an amazing amount of work into the refurbishment of the preschool. Thanks to generous donations and the hard work of our volunteers we have recently built a toilet block for the children, a new thatch roof for the veranda, a number of physical play sites such as an adventure course and a climbing frame. In addition we have revamped the interior of the main classroom building after it sustained bad water damage. A second classroom is set to be completed by the end of May 2009. It’s our hope that with the addition of a second classroom and further developments of the preschool we will be able to expand our capacity to provide this vital early education to more of the children of Vilanculos. Our plans for 2009 are to explore a number of different projects, for example a farming programme that will run concurrently with the preschool to enable it to become more self-sufficient and sustainable.

It is not only through the preschool that the project in Vilanculos provides educational support; we have also started a language school that is free for any members of the community to attend. The language school meets twice a week and provides the opportunity for adults and young adults alike to learn or increase their knowledge of English. As Vilanculos’ reputation as the tourism capital of Mozambique grows, many new employment opportunities will be made available. We hope that by equipping the adults and youth of Vilanculos with English skills, this will increase their chances of employment and help them to improve their standard of living.

Another recently conceived endeavour of the Mozambique Community Project is the HIV/AIDS education workshops in the secondary schools of Vilanculos. We are fortunate that the Ministry of Education has opened the doors of the schools of Vilanculos to African Impact volunteers to conduct these potentially life-changing workshops. The workshops are very creative in nature, combining theatre, role play and artistic response to the subject matter. Our hope is that the workshops not only present students with the basic and life-saving facts about HIV/AIDS, but through creative and deep engagement with the material will also fight the social stigma that surrounds the virus.

In addition to the HIV workshops, the Vilanculos Community Project also conducts monthly testing and awareness days in the wider community. Through intimate knowledge of the communities of Vilanculos, we organize public meetings to discuss the biology and treatment of HIV through creative and interactive media. While these presentations are going on, CARE International accompanies us to provide free and confidential HIV testing. These days are invaluable to the community as it gives people the opportunity to get tested in a private fashion while also giving them a wealth of knowledge on the subject that is accessible and interesting.

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