Author: Nicole Johnston

Improving access to education in Mozambique is a struggle, but determined parents, together with local and international NGOs, are working to ensure that resources designated for education reach their children. Nicole Johnston finds out how.

Girls listen attentively in class at Montes Namuli Primary School in Gurue. Photo: Neo Ntsoma/Oxfam

The war in Mozambique may have ended 18 years ago, but its legacy lives on in the classrooms of rural schools in Zambézia province.

This area most often makes headlines when the Zambezi River floods, but it is also the province that suffered most during the 16-year civil war because of the rebel strategy of targeting and destroying hospitals, schools and roads.

Here it is not unusual to have 100 children in a class, taught by teachers who have not finished high school themselves, with no toilets or running water. Exhausted teachers often run classes in three shifts, the first starting at 6.30am, and many schools do not possess any reading material apart from the children’s work books.

A battle parents are determined to win

A girl solves maths problems on the blackboard at Montes Namuli Primary School in Gurue. Photo: Neo Ntsoma/Oxfam

Mozambique has made huge strides in improving access to basic education since the end of the civil war, but it is an uphill battle. For parents and teachers in rural towns and villages, this is a battle they are determined to win.

Each school, no matter how impoverished, has a school council elected by members of the community and dedicated to ensuring its children get a decent education. Schools in affluent cities would admire the zeal with which they approach this task: apathy is not an option here.

“This school was built by the community — they collected stones and made bricks to build the walls and then they lobbied government for the timber and iron sheets for the roof,” explains Pedro Namagila, director of the Errego Primary School in Ile.

But the lack of basic amenities is not the only challenge that the school council faces: ensuring children stay in school is a major concern, with about 60% of children dropping out before completing Grade 5. For families struggling to grow enough food to survive, every child in school is a pair of hands lost from the fields.

And as the HIV pandemic spreads, large numbers of children — mostly girls — drop out of school to work or care for sick relatives and younger siblings.

“If a child drops out, we will go and ask the family why,” says Ferraz Lugeira, chairperson of the school council. “If they say it is because they don’t have books or stationery we use money from a fund for orphaned and vulnerable children.”

No child turned away

Children at play in Gurue district, Zambezia province. Photo: Neo Ntsoma/Oxfam

This determination by parents that their children get a better chance in life than they have had is echoed at Namaripe Primary School near Gurue. The school is nestled against a backdrop of spectacular mountains and tea plantations, and is reached by a road that, even in a 4×4, makes getting there an ordeal. The children walk long distances to school, and often there is not enough space to accommodate them once they get there.

The province has a ratio of 91 pupils to each teacher, the distances are vast and the roads are bad or non-existent, making it difficult for the Education Department to deliver schoolbooks or do inspections.

Americo Vaela is the chairperson of the school council and is determined that no child be turned away. “Lots of children don’t come to school because we don’t have enough classrooms. So we build classrooms with thatch walls and roofs until we can make the bricks we need.”

“Each year we receive more and more students, so the school council will get together and figure out how many bricks each family should make,” explains school council member Padania Henriques. “We ask people with building skills to lend us their expertise and others help us with the physical labour of building.”

Other members of the council ensure that children who have been orphaned by Aids are still able to come to school. “These children are taken in by relatives, but they have their own children and it puts a lot of strain on them,” says Manuele Mutocorowa. “We try to help by making sure the orphans have books and stationery.” Their dream is to have a hostel at the school to house orphaned children during the school term.

But even with the best will in the world, the school councils — run by community members who are themselves living in poverty — can only do so much. And ironically, this self-help spirit can serve to maintain the status quo, as it is often easier for communities to take action themselves than to lobby government officials for action.

Holding the government to account

The school councils are meant to ensure transparency and accountability around funds allocated from national level through the provinces, then the districts and on to the schools. But often these funds arrive late or not at all, and textbooks and teachers’ salaries are delayed.

Local and international NGOs have been able to make some impact through initiatives such as the Zambézia Education Project, which provides basic classroom materials, and safe housing for female teachers in rural areas, and builds and equips teacher resource centres and school libraries.

But this is not a sustainable solution, so Oxfam and its partner organisations Kukumbi and AMME (The Association for Mozambican Women and Education) are working in communities and with school councils to help citizens demand accountability from their government, and ensure resources designated for education actually reach their children.

It’s a long, slow process, but active citizenship — in which communities demand what is owed them — is the only way that Mozambique’s children will be ensured their right to an education, and a way out of poverty.

Where we work: Mozambique

Oxfam in action: education

A new allotment project set up by an Oxfam partner is ensuring that one Zimbabwean community is getting its ‘five-a-day’ in spite of an arid economic climate, says Nicole Johnston.

Peninah Nare (62) waters her maize using an irrigation well installed by Oxfam partner, the Dabane Trust. Photo: Nicole Johnston

The Matobo district of Matabeleland has some of the world’s most spectacular scenery, full of massive granite boulders balanced in improbable formations and with views so breathtaking that Cecil Rhodes himself insisted on being buried there.

It is also home to some incredibly resourceful people, determined to take the lemons life has given them and make some lemonade. The area is traditionally arid but has become even drier in the past decade, with drought after drought putting strain on communities whose primary livelihood is agriculture.

An oasis of lush greenery

Tshelenyemba village is on the banks of the Shashane, a “sand river” that flows for only a few weeks a year, forcing people to dig beneath the sand to extract water in the dry season. Yet the Bhekimpilo (”care for health/life”) food garden is an oasis of lush greenery, filled with tender veggies and delicious fruit. The project is the brainchild of the Dabane Trust, an Oxfam partner, which aims to ensure the community not only has a sustainable supply of food but also takes charge of their own health, particularly around HIV.

Attah Moyo, chairperson of the Bhekimpilo food garden, with the the orange trees which provide much needed vitamins to people living with HIV. Photo: Nicole Johnston.

“We grow the gardens so we can have a better life,” says Attha Moyo, the chairperson of the garden project. “We used to each have our own garden with brushwood fences but the animals used to destroy them and eat our crops. Now we all farm in one big garden that has a proper wire fence, so our crops are safe.”

The project has also introduced a well-point and hand pump that allows water to be drawn up from the riverbed to irrigate the gardens.

Aggie Ncube, a member of the project explains how they have planted spinach, carrots, beetroot, onions, sweet potatoes and oranges. “These veggies have helped us so much. Look at my skin,” she says with a wink. “I am looking good!”

Fresh vegetables every day

Aggie Ncube, S’pathisiwe Ncube and Regina Maphosa picking spinach. Photo: Nicole Johnston.

“We now eat fresh vegetables every day so we don’t have to buy from the shops. I can use that money to send my children to school and buy uniforms. We also donate some of our crops to people living with HIV and to the local schools,” she adds.

The project also provides training on HIV and gender equality to its members. “I learned that we need to know our [HIV] status, which foods we should eat and also about using condoms,” says Silendeni Mvundla. “It is difficult to talk about condoms with our husbands but because this is about our life and that of our children, we speak to them and agree to test [for HIV]“.

Her friend Chipo Sibanda chips in proudly: “Our men have been empowered now, so they can go test!”

A couple of kilometres down the road is the Mpumelelo (”progress”) garden, another Dabane Trust project. For the members of this community the garden has been a lifeline in the recent economic hardships.

Difficult times

“Even though it has been difficult times in Zimbabwe, we have been able to feed ourselves and also to help our neighbours and extended family,” says Medium Maphosa, chairman of the project.

The project has also provided a buffer for the community after the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar and the adoption of the US dollar, a move that saw many rural communities struggling to access hard currency to buy basic commodities.

“It is difficult to get that currency so I am lucky I had vegetables to sell. Last year I grew lots of very nice tomatoes, so I could buy sugar and tea and pay for school fees. I have five children at school but I have been able to pay their fees even in these difficulties,” says Teresa Ncube.

Caring for people with HIV

The project also allows the community to care for people affected by HIV. “There are so many orphans and old people so we are able to provide them with vegetables, we help with household chores like cleaning and we also provide moral support,” explains Linda Moyo.

Community members say the training provided by Dabane Trust on HIV/AIDS has helped the community face issues of stigma and allowed them to rally around and provide support to those who need it.

“HIV has affected so many people, not just physically but emotionally,” says Sibusisiwe Nkomo. “We take them food to ensure they eat properly, but we also make sure they feel loved and cared for.”

Where we work: Zimbabwe

Issues we work on: global economic crisis

The UN Commission on the Status of Women convenes in New York today (1 March) to look at gender equality and the advancement of women. The ongoing challenge is how to help young women with few choices, like Privilege Zengeni, realise their aspirations. Oxfam’s Nicole Johnston reports.

Privilege Zengeni is a breathtakingly articulate young woman with a direct manner and a bright smile. She also embodies the challenges facing young Zimbabwean women, as well as their resilience.

We met when she approached me at a meeting about a cash transfer scheme run by Oxfam partner, Lead Trust, in Bulawayo. Drawn by my video and digital camera, she was shy but came straight to the point: “Can you please show me how that works? I want to be a journalist one day.”

Few alternatives

Like many Zimbabwean children and teenagers, Privilege is an orphan. She lives with her aunt and her gogo (granny) in a household with no steady income. They survive by selling vegetables, which they grow in their own backyard. Unemployment tops 90% in Zimbabwe and there are few alternatives. The family’s vulnerability qualifies them for the cash transfer scheme, which provides $25 a month to households identified by community members as being in urgent need of help.

Even in a country where – as the joke goes – “education is the biggest religion”, Privilege’s yearning for learning is unmistakable.

“Life is hard here. We need to learn but we don’t have the money for school fees. I know I need to be educated to secure my future, but what can I do?”

Privilege is still in high school, unable to complete her schooling until she can clear her outstanding fees and find money to enrol for Form Four.

She wants to be a health or development journalist so she can speak directly to other girls about the issues that directly affect their lives, particularly HIV and unplanned pregnancies.

“Maybe they feel they don’t have a choice”

“As girls it is difficult for us. When we have our periods we don’t even have money to buy sanitary pads. Things can get really hard at home, so girls will look out for a grown-up man who can give them money. But at the end we become pregnant or get HIV and that ’sugar daddy’ will never come back for you. Girls do hear the messages about HIV prevention but they don’t listen. Maybe they feel they don’t have a choice, so they do those things. I won’t do that because I want a future and I have learned from seeing other people’s mistakes.”

She feels that girls need someone they can talk to, who understands their concerns and speaks their language. “Someone needs to tell our stories,” she says.

Where we work: Zimbabwe.

Issues we work on: gender equality.

Since the devastating cholera epidemic that broke out in Zimbabwe in the first part of 2009, Oxfam and a local partner in Bulawayo have been working with communities to improve sanitation and protect against future outbreaks. Nicole Johnston reports.

The devastating cholera epidemic that hit Zimbabwe last year not only drew international attention, but also helped to mobilise communities. During the country’s economic meltdown, many public services simply ceased to function, from rubbish removal to public sanitation facilities, posing obvious dangers to the quality of life of the people of the city, and particularly the poor in the high-density areas.

Tackling a public health nightmare

“In the last three years many municipal public toilets closed down, refuse was being dumped all over the place and sewer pipes were burst,” explains Shaik Alibaba, a team leader working for the Lead Trust, an Oxfam partner organisation in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. “The community of Makokoba was looking for a way to clean up their area, so we provided tools such as brooms and they started clearing up the streets. Community members approached the Bulawayo municipality directly and got trucks to come pick up the rubbish they had collected.”

The next step was to provide public toilets to allow people access to decent facilities and prevent the spread of disease. “This area is a business hub,” says Alibaba. “There is a bus terminus here and lots of informal businesses too. But because there were no toilets, people were just relieving themselves anywhere they could find.”

The Lead Trust and community members created a committee, mostly comprising unemployed people or those with particular skills, such as plumbing or landscaping. The committee members completed a course in business management training and negotiated a lease agreement with the city council to take over and renovate a block of derelict public toilets. The committee also notifies the council immediately if there is a burst sewer pipe in the area.

Bob Mzondo tends to the flowerbeds he has planted in the roots of a tree. Photo: Nicole Johnston

Replumbing and repainting

The community members replumbed and repainted the toilets and installed a 200 litre water tank on the roof, to ensure that the toilets remain operational in the event of a water cut. The area around the toilets has been cleared of all rubbish and undergrowth, and beautifully planted with flowers and trees.

“We make a small charge for use of the toilets,” says Alibaba. “They use this money to pay rent and rates, to ensure there is always toilet tissue and soap. They also buy cleaning materials and members of the community take turns to clean the toilets.”

A visit to the project shows just how seriously the community is taking it – the floors are pristine, the taps and sinks sparkle, and the fragrance of flowers wafts in from the gardens outside.

Committee member Bob Mzondo, an experienced landscaper who previously worked for the Parks department, has not just planted flowers but also mealies (corn) on the open peice of ground next to the toilets. The area is unfenced and faces a busy road, leaving his crop vulnerable to plunder. But Bob doesn’t care – as far as he is concerned, anyone who is hungry enough to steal his mealies is welcome to help themselves: “as long as they don’t dump rubbish here, I don’t mind.”

This post originally appeared on Oxfam’s Southern Africa Regional Blog.

Where we work: Zimbabwe

In pictures: Zimbabwe’s cholera crisis (early 2009)

At least 30 earthquakes have rocked Malawi since early December, the largest measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Nicole Johnston talks to one of the many thousands of people now living in fear and uncertainty, and finds out how Oxfam is helping.

The last time I saw Caroline Malema was in Cape Town, where she had testified at Oxfam’s Pan African Climate Change hearings. She was excited and proud to have been able to speak on behalf of HIV-positive women affected by climate change.

A family surveys the damage to their home after it was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Photo: Nicole Johnston.

Last week I saw her again, standing outside the crumbling remains of her home in Karonga, strain etched on her face as she showed me the grass and plastic shelter in her backyard, where her family now sleeps.

Since the string of earthquakes that struck northern Malawi in early December, people do not dare sleep in their houses, afraid of again waking up in the middle of the night to find the floors buckling and bricks raining down from the walls.

A swarm of earthquakes
At least 30 earthquakes have rocked the country in the past month, the largest measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Scientists are calling the series of quakes in Karonga – situated along the Great Rift Valley and near the border with Tanzania  – an “earthquake swarm” and doing geological assessments to ascertain if more are on the way.

“The house was shaking like it was being carried on a big lorry,” says Caroline, describing the first quake. “I had such a fright I rushed out of the house and forgot my grandchild inside.”

In the second quake on 20 December, Caroline’s child was hit on the head by a brick. The family fled outside and spent the night in the pouring rain. The next day the child, who suffers from asthma had to go into hospital. The family is living in fear, not knowing when or if another big quake will strike, not sure if they should try to patch up the gaping holes and cracks in their walls and roof, and not really having the money to do so.

“We don’t think this is finished – there are still lots of small shakes. We don’t know why this happens. Is it climate change? Is it God doing this?”

Fear and uncertainty

A woman washes dishes outside her tent at a camp for people displaced by the earthquakes in Karonga. Photo: Nicole Johnston.

This uncertainty is impacting on women’s ability to earn a living, as they are loathed to leave their children alone while they go to trade for fish at the markets near Lake Malawi, in case another big earthquake strikes.

“The rains didn’t come in November as they were supposed to, but they came very heavily after the earthquakes. Our maize harvest will be very poor, and then what will we eat?” asks Malema.

The Malawian government and NGOs have set up a camp for displaced people, and currently caters for about 7000 people. But many refuse to move into the camp and desert their homes.  “People don’t want to leave their land,’ explains Colins Kamuloni the camp manager from the Ministry of Health. “They will tell you ‘our parents died here and their graves are here, so where should we go?’ If they don’t work in the fields now, there will be hunger next year.”

What Oxfam is doing
Oxfam has accessed money from its Catastrophe Fund to install water tanks, water points and toilets. We are also working with partner organisations and the Malawian Ministry of Health on education around safe hygiene practices, as well as to distribute soap, water containers and mosquito nets.

Kossam Munthali of Focus – a community based Oxfam partner organisation – is clear that living in the camp is not a long-term solution: “We don’t want people to become dependent on aid. We need accountability and transparency on how decisions will be made if people are to be relocated.”

The challenges faced by the affected community – comprising 270 000 people – are compounded for the 3000 HIV-positive members of the Karonga Women’s Forum.

“As HIV-positive women we need to eat five times a day, so that our medicine [anti-retrovirals] can work properly. But now we do not have enough food and we sleep outside without mosquito nets, which is very dangerous for positive women because malaria can kill us,” says Malema. “The shelters we have built are very small [about 1x 3m] and some have two families in them at night, so we are also afraid of cholera. The earthquake knocked down the toilets and the heavy rain has washed them away.”

If a geological survey finds that the area is likely to suffer more quakes in future, the community may be relocated. Malema worries that she will not be able to afford to build another house, and will lose the farmland that provides the subsistence crops that feed her family. “Climate change has hit us very hard, and we were already struggling to survive. Now we don’t know what the future holds for our children.”

Oxfam 365: help Oxfam respond to emergencies day in, day out

Where we work: Malawi