Mozambique

Community Description
CACHES (Crianças Artistas Contra HIV e SIDA) is a community based organization in Chicumbane, Mozambique that combines elements of art, dance, music, theatre, and sex education to provide a structured after-school program and playing/learning environment for local youth. Although a relatively new organization, CACHES has already achieved wide recognition throughout the community and serves between 30-50 children daily.

The CACHES facility is often used for small-scale community events and is also home to JOMA and REDES groups, adolescent youth empowerment and leadership programs funded by PEPFAR.

The basic latrine used by children and facilitators of CACHES, composed of decaying reed and wire, is at this point insufficient to properly accommodate the high volume of use which it is getting. It offers very little privacy for children, and the lack of a proper latrine cover provides an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies. The lack of a roof means that the latrine (and its users) become subject to harsh weather elements. Oftentimes, children will choose to go to the bathroom in the surrounding bushes rather than enter the latrine.

Project Description
This project is to build an improved latrine with separate sides for boys and girls. It will be a simple rectangular reed structure fortified with cement, with one wall slightly higher so that water will easily drain off the corrugated tin roof, and two latrine holes, divided by a cement wall.

The dimension of the building will be 2 meters x 3 meters x 3/3.5 meters. In order to ensure privacy and prevent misuse, each entrance will have a locking door. The staff and activists of CACHES will maintain the facilities.

Project funds will be used to purchase materials, including rocks, cement, tin sheets, fabricated cement latrine covers, planks, doors, and locks, and to pay for labor.

In order to maintain a sense of ownership of the project, CACHES will provide the cement blocks.

Project Impact
150 people will benefit from the project.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Vivienne Chao

Comments
A new and improved latrine will enable CACHES to continue to deliver quality services to children and the entire community.

Dollar Amount of Project
$555.00

Donations Collected to Date
$275.00

ADOPT THIS PROJECT BY CONTRIBUTING THE DOLLAR AMOUNT NEEDED BELOW

Donations of any amount will be appreciated. The full amount will give you "naming rights", if that is something you would like.

Any contributions in excess of the Dollar Amount of Project will be allocated to other projects directed by this PCV and/or projects of other PCVs in this country.

Dollar Amount Needed
$280.00

Community Description
Massinga is a busy district capital located along the national highway of Mozambique. The people of Massinga are widely affected by problems including HIV, malaria, and difficult access to water.

The community directly involved is a primary school of 1,500 students (grades 1-6), located near the district hospital. The water source for the entire school is an electric pump located 500 m downhill. This distance makes it difficult to have sufficient water available for cleaning the bathrooms.

For these students there are 2 brick bathrooms for urinating and 3 latrines.

Each bathroom is further separated by a one brick high barrier to create a false sense of privacy. These brick barriers and the wall barrier between the bathrooms each have a 1 inch hole for drainage.

The current problems with this bathroom system are the following: 1) no water access, 2) ineffective waste drainage system, and 3) waste runs outside into the open air. These factors combine to create an unhygienic, unpleasant environment where cleaning is difficult, and children prefer using the outside.

Project Description
This project will provide running water for the 2 bathrooms, improve the drainage between and out of the bathrooms, and install a faucet and a handwashing station consisting of ‘tippy-taps.’ The faucet can be used for additional cleaning of the bathrooms or other water needs of the school.

Each bathroom will have a tube coming down from the wall that will wash away urine in the improved trough to be in place. The main tube will be connected to a source 42 m slightly uphill from the bathrooms (as decided by the city water company).

The main water pipe will be parted into two systems, one being a water faucet and the other controlling the water flow to the pipes in the bathrooms. When the lever is turned on, water will run into both the bathrooms at once and down to the storage containers.

The 1 in. tube leading out of the bathrooms onto the ground will be modified by adding a minimum 2 in. wide tube emptying into a storage/filtration containment. This will be a minimum 1 ½ m x 1 ½ m, lined with ‘bottle bricks’ (as used by ECO-TEC solutions), and the bottom of this pit will be lined with rocks.

The Peace Corps Volunteer will be teaching the bottle brick construction method to a local contractor as well as interested faculty members for the construction. The children have already involved themselves by bringing in ½-liter bottles to school. These bottles will be filled with sand by the kids and used as bricks instead of cement bricks.

Water Charity funding will be used for the various tubes and connectors needed, a complete faucet tap, cement needed to seal the bottle bricks together, cement needed to make an improved gutter structure in the bathrooms, and a handwashing station.

The plumbing will be done by the city water company.

After construction the facilities will be cleaned and water bills paid for by the school.

During and after the construction, lessons will be given involving hygiene, why it is important, and why the reuse of plastic trash is important (i.e. how it harms the environment). These will be given by the teachers and local peer educators from the district hospital.

Project Impact
1,500 students will benefit from the project.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Alicia Portillo

Comments
This is an effective project to bring water to the school and utilize it for regular and effective sanitation. It has widespread school and community support, and it creates an interest in proper hygiene which will students will bring back to their homes.

Dollar Amount of Project
$450.00

Donations Collected to Date
$450.00

Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 - This project has been fully funded through the generosity of Melissa Thompson, of Minneapolis, MN, USA.

We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Alician Portillo of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Alicia and/or those other PCVs in the country of service.

This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.

Community Description
Chicumbane is a medium sized rural community that lies directly on the national highway a short distance from the capital of Gaza province, which has the highest HIV prevalence rate in Mozambique at 26%.

Chicumbane's location creates an environment of stark contrasts. While many middle class families living in cement houses with electricity commute to their jobs in the nearby provincial capital, others living in reed shacks rely heavily on agrarian activities such as the raising of livestock and subsistence farming.

In addition, there is a large population that has a traditional mentality towards work and education, preferring to keep girls at home and send boys to herd in the pastures, rather than send the children to school. Both the standard of living and the lack of education impede the knowledge and understanding of basic community and family health concepts.

Crianças Artistas Contra HIV e SIDA (Artistic Children Against HIV and AIDS), or CACHES, is a Community Art and Recreation Center in the community of Chicumbane. The vision of CACHES is of a world in which children grow up to be self-confident and empowered adults. Dedicated community members have come together with the mission to create a refuge where local children can be motivated, encouraged, and educated so that they gain the necessary information and skills to live happy, healthy lives free from HIV and AIDS.

At present, the basic latrine at CACHES is made of reeds and wire, and is insufficient to properly accommodate the high volume of use that results from the participation of youth in lessons and activities. Programs were recently expanded to accommodate up to 75 people per day, and there is an urgent need to improve the sanitation facilities.

Project Description
This project is to build a new latrine complex at the center, with separate sides for boys and girls.

It will be a simple rectangular cement block structure with one wall slightly higher so that water will easily drain off the corrugated tin roof. Its dimensions will be 2 meters x 3 meters x 3/3.5 meters.

The two latrines will be lined with concrete blocks, and covered by concrete latrine platforms. There will be two locking doors to insure privacy and prevent misuse.

Project funds will be used to purchase and transport materials, including blocks, cement, gravel, sand, vents, and doors.

The work will be done by local contractors and art center staff.

Once completed, the staff and activists of the community art center will maintain the facilities.

Project Impact
The project will benefit 465 people, including 50 registered local youth and 15 formal staff, plus another 100 youth and nearly 300 community members involved in activities throughout the year.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Emily McIntosh

Comments
A healthy environment at the center will foster the teaching of proper health behaviors, thereby leading to a reduction in disease.

Dollar Amount of Project
$500.00

This project became infeasible, and was not implemented.

Community Description
Mozambique is located in southeastern Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean on the east, Tanzania on the north, Malawi and Zambia on the northwest, Zimbabwe on the west and Swaziland and South Africa on the southwest.

This project is situated in Chimundo, which began as an expansion neighborhood for the nearby district capitol of Chibuto. Although this neighborhood arose in the late 1970s, it was only after bad floods in 2000, causing loss of lives and the destruction of many houses in the Limpopo River Valley, that many people moved to Chimundo.

Chimundo has about 1,112 families consisting of 5,560 people. Some of the major problems Chimundo faces are: food security, high infant mortality (due to causes such as diarrhea, malaria, and bacterial diseases), high percentage of population living with HIV/AIDS, and low literacy levels. The HIV/AIDS epidemic that plagues Mozambique is a factor that contributes greatly to the growing number of orphans and vulnerable children in the area.

The community center is a response created by concerned community members designed to alleviate these problems and improve the lives of the Chimundo citizens.

In 2004, a project was started by a group of Franciscan nuns to respond to the needs of many flood victims who lost their houses. The project is divided into the following areas: a pre-school, an after-school program, a training center, and a recreational center.

The pre-school promotes the growth and development of motor, cognitive, and social skills for the young children. The after-school program is a space where school-aged children come for homework help and to occupy their free time constructively. The training center offers English, information technology, carpentry, and basket-weaving classes for youth and adults. The recreational center provides activities, such as films, for the enjoyment of Chimundo’s citizens.

Although the community center has the infrastructure to house these activities, such as a pre-school classroom, an after-school classroom, and a building that serves as the training and recreational center, it lacks a sanitary bathroom.

Project Description
This project is to construct a bathroom at the community center. It will be built with cement blocks and a tin roof. It will have facilities for males and females, and will be equipped with basic plumbing.

Project Impact
There are 35 children ranging from 2-5 years old who attend the pre-school every day who will benefit from this project.

In addition the community members who participate in the other areas such as tutoring, carpentry class, English lessons, and information technology classes will also benefit from the project.

The total number will be 100 persons who directly benefit, and all of the 5,500 inhabitants of Chimundo will benefit indirectly.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Gracey Uffman

Comments
The construction of an appropriate bathroom will greatly help the caretakers of the pre-school to better provide for the children of the center. In addition, the persons participating in the other activities at the center will also benefit from the sanitary facilities.

This project satisfies a critical basic need at a very low cost.

Dollar Amount of Project
$499.00

Donations Collected to Date
$499.00

Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 - This project has been fully funded, through the generosity of Marian Uffman, of Baton Rouge, LA, USA with the help of Gracey’s friends.

We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Gracey Uffman of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Gracey and/or those of her counterpart PCVs in Mozambique.

This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.