MANNA is working in partnership with the Anglican Diocese of Nampula, Mozambique to build a girls boarding home close to Maratane Secondary school, Nampula, northern Mozambique. The project is the vision of Rev Claudina Cabral who is the Anglican priest in Maratane church inside the refugee camp and who’s own children are now grown up. Claudina has been working with these girls and is aware of the huge dangers of child marriage, pregnancy, sexual violence and barriers to education:
- Only 11% of girls in Mozambique continue onto secondary school and Mozambique’s female literacy rate is less than half that of males.
- If girls do get to secondary schools, (in a study done by UNGEI), 66% of girls reported physical, sexual and psychological violence & abuse in and around schools.
- In many cases poverty pushes girls to exchange sex for money, food or school supplies with a huge risk of HIV.
- Almost half of girls in Mozambique are married before the age of 18 and 15% before they turn 15.
Her vision is to set up a safe girls boarding home close to the Maratane Secondary school to enable girls from the Refugee camp and other surrounding villages to get to school. Boarding homes are common in secondary schools as most secondary are in the cities and too far for students from rural villages to travel to every day. But these increase risks for girls. Claudina’s vision is to build a girls home for 25 girls that she and other mother’s will live in and look after the girls in the weeks. At weekends they will return to their parents.
The Anglican Diocese of Nampula is managing this project and has already bought and secured the land where the project will be established. They have also managed to secure funding to set up a small chicken farming business on the property where they will raise chickens for sale and egg production to provide income to run the project and look after the girls. This will also teach the girls necessary agricultural and business skills.
For more information or if you would like to support this project get in touch with [email protected]
