Just a last update on the activities of The Pearl of Mozambique.

Education

At the ‘escolinha’ everything is going very well. There are now 120 children/students and 36 of them stay until 3pm – which is including lunch.
All children get a healthy snack at 10am, mostly because most of them go to school at 7am without any breakfast. Classes are held from 8am to midday and from 8am to 3pm.

During the ‘parents-meeting’, the following items were discussed:

• When will we start building the playground at the school
• Ideally we need more books for the library
• In the meantime, school uniforms have been provided. Materials have been bought and the parents buy whatever is needed for 1 or 2 uniforms at replacement value and go the local tailor. Nothing is mandatory, so some students only have a shirt or skirt/pants, while others might have a complete uniform
• Is it possible to have more variety in the food
  

We also added a few suggestions ourselves:

• Buy filters to clean the water
• Clean and upgrade the storage unit with several shelves, this will be useful for the new-made toys, cleaning materials and cutlery

Mosagri promised to donate 15kg of moringa per year, thank you!!!

The moringa will be used for cookies, snacks, bread and other healthy and nutritional food.

In the vegetable garden, the plants are growing nicely. In the meantime, we have tomatoes, paprika, lettuce, red beets, carrots, onions and various herbs. We also have moringa trees, papayas, mango and citrus. This way, without making any costs, we can make a free and diverse, healthy lunch. Helpo provides rice, eggs and additional tomatoes.

In addition to this, we focused on the opportunities for the future. The oldest children will go to secondary school in February. To maintain the level of education, we’re looking for these students at Activitados tempo libre, spare time activities, in addition to the regular education. What we need to do so is an extra classroom and teacher.

Health

We’ve talked again with Dr. Lucinia, Dr. Carolina (district head) and Dr. Quirino (hospital in Mozambique) of the maternidade in Lumbo.

Of course, also this time we delivered medicines, like bone needles, hb cuvettes, glucose meters etc at the local health posts.

Given that health student Thijs volunteered to work in Lumbo and he will guide the process of the echo-machine, we have taken care of all the paperwork with Dr. Carolina.

After in-depth research and information sharing, we concluded that the echo-machine needs to be easy-to-use, solid and flexible. A lot of work is being done on it and we hope to have it in February. Additionally, we spoke about the construction of the Casa Mae Espera (a nursery for pregnant women), which is really necessary in Lumbo. In the maternidade (maternity clinic) in Lumbo there are 600 childbirths every year and with the right equipment (echo-machine and Casa Mae) a lot of complications can be avoided and a lot of urgent travel to far-away clinics won’t be needed either.

Dr. Lucinia will look, together with the local contractor, at the possibilities, requirements and the necessities of the building. Also in the postes de saudes (small hospitals), better nutrition and food is necessary and we are looking into helping out here as well through workshops for young women and pregnant women.

Culture

In preparation of the Festival d’Arte of 2018, there has been a meeting between us and the director of the museum, mr Silverio. Various good things have been agreed already, for example a coffee corner will be created by the museum with a terrace outside on the square. Coffee, tea and soda will be served here, together with some small snacks. There will be a small museum store as well with local handcraft, art, souvenirs and information about the island and museum.
The date has been set: Second Edition of Festival d’Arte will be held from August 13th to 24th, 2018 with art workshops and various activities for the children. From August 25^th onwards, there will be an exposition at the museum. Together with the museum, the artists and the foundation (PoM), we are looking for sponsors! For example, we need flights, materials and housing etc.

The talented Nuhi is still being sponsored in his activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fund-raising evening and concert of Neco Novellas

The fund-raising evening was a big success. There was a good, warm and informal atmosphere. The presentations were excellent and the auction was a big success. Of course, the highlight of the evening was the performance of Neco Novellas – a great musician from Mozambique. After a slow and story-telling start, he managed to get the people on the dancefloor and the atmosphere was excellent. There was also a lot if interaction with the crowd.
Also the auction was a big success and we’re very happy and proud to announce that we’ve raised more than €5,000!

Of course, we would like to thank all the volunteers, supporters, Café Oncle Jean and all participants.