Mozambique Habitat for Humanity OVC programme

I have just returned from an incredible two weeks working with Habitat for Humanity in Mozambique. The credit crunch unfortunately has hit charities hard this year, and this has meant the Global Village programme that Habitat does has also been drastically affected. However, I was quite privileged to benefit from this as I was asked to lead a team to Mozambique at the last minute, and it was one of the most awarding Habitat trips I have been to.

Habitat Mozambique differs from the traditional Habitat model in order to cope best with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Around 16% of the Mozambican population are affected, the percentage being much higher in rural areas, and this has left many orphans and single-parent families with little or no income. The traditional Habitat model is built around the providing a low-cost home which homeowner family pays a no-interest mortgage towards, but given the situation in Mozambique, Habitat has adopted the model where they are focused on providing 100% subsidised homes for orphans or vulnerable children - the OVC programme. However, in keeping with the spirit of the charity, homeowners still have to provide their own sweat equity (i.e. they must provide their own labour towards their own homes), as well as helping others in the community with their homes.

We were building in a small village called Jossias Tongagara about 1.5 hours out of the capital Maputo. This was by far the poorest community I have ever built for. One of the team mentioned that it was almost like going back in time, seeing how these families live their day-to-day lives. This is an example of the types of home they would be living in, constructed by very basic materials - branches, mud, and a corrugated iron roof if they are lucky:

It comes as no surprise that these homes are extremely vulnerable to not only the weather, but also diseases. The homes are also incredibly dark as they have no windows, and as a result, families spend most of their time outside. Chairs are a rarity in the village, and every time our team took a break, the children would gather up all the chairs in the nearby homes. We were only a team of 5, yet they couldn't always find enough chairs.

We got a very unique view of how people lived their lives as we built their new homes next to their existing mud huts. I found it incredible that almost everything had to be done from scratch. People would disappear for ages just to go and fetch water, and all food was pain-stakingly made. Here is a picture of one of the girls we built for. Louisa here is grinding corn and maize in order to make xima, a porridge-staple found in much of Africa (ugali in Tanzania/Kenya, garri in Nigeria). She was literally grinding for most of the morning and afternoon, and she does this every day for her family's main meal:

We also visited the local school in the village during our visit, and again, we were shocked at the conditions. The school not only lacked materials such as exercise books, but even basic things like desks and a flat floor could not be taken for granted here. They also have a huge problem with girls' attendance once they reach around the age of 15, where many girls give up their education in order to get married and start families:

We had a very packed two weeks, so I'll post a few different posts. Overall, however, it was just such a privileged to meet the community, get to know the families, and the whole experience was extremely humbling.