Maria Baptista (25) is a mother who is expecting her fifth child. She lives in Chidzizima, Mozambique. During Cyclone Idai, she spent 3 days standing in the one classroom of the local school that had not had its roof blown off, with smaller children standing on desks as the flood waters were chest deep on her and other survivors from her community. When the water receded, she found her house virtually destroyed and all of their possessions were lost, including their seed for the next season’s planting. ACT member CEDES has provided food and hygiene items, as well as hygiene and sanitation training, to Maria’s and other families in Chidzizima.
GEOGRAPHIC REGION
Africa
PARTNER
Our partner in Mozambique is the Anglican Diocese of Nampula (Until March 2019 the project area was under the guardianship of the Diocese of Niassa).
Mozambique, located on the eastern coast of southern Africa, has a population of 28.8 million people. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world; it is ranked 181 on the Human Development Index, out of 188 countries, and 46.1 percent of the people are living in poverty.
In much of rural northern Mozambique the water and sanitation situation is far from what it should be: lack of awareness of health and sanitation issues can result in unsafe practices such as open defecation (going to the toilet in public spaces), failure to wash hands, and contamination of food and water in the household. Add dirty community water sources to the mix and you have a dangerous health situation in which diarrheal diseases are the sixth-most common cause of death in children under five.
We work with the Diocese of Nampula on the Towards Abundant Life project. This project has a core focus on responding to high levels of HIV infection and associated vulnerability, and providing clean water and sanitation. The project’s success is built on teams of volunteers from each community – called Equipas de Vida or Teams of Life – taking responsibility for community education and action on HIV and AIDS. This includes door-to-door campaigning to educate communities about how to prevent the spread of HIV, encourage people to be tested, talk about their HIV status and stress the importance of using antiretroviral medication. This approach also allows the teams to reach vulnerable people who don’t have access to testing facilities, usually the disabled and women. The Equipas also take responsibility for supporting vulnerable people, including those with HIV. This project follows on from the Community Water, Sanitation and Hygiene project which was completed in 2017. This project built on the success of the Equipa de Vida model to provide communities with access to water that is safe and life-giving. An evaluation of the project has been completed, and the results are available in the report posted below. The water and sanitation component of our work in Mozambique is continuing in the Towards Abundant Life project. The Towards Abundant Life project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) together with donations from the Australian public. Every donation you make to this project will be combined with funding from the Australian Government to reach more people. We have committed to contribute $1 for every $5 we receive from the Australian Government. Your donation will allow us to extend our programs.
Funding:
If you would like to donate to our work in Mozambique, click on the ‘Please Donate’ button (choose ‘Mozambique – Health & Wellbeing’ from the ‘Donation’ drop-down menu):
