Uniforms

Some of ALG's priorities are local development, local empowerment and local self-sustainability. Therefore, ALG team working on the field is formed only by members of the communities. Meet our teachers Amelia and Florinda, and our cook Deolinda who are everyday in the Pre-School São Vicente Paulo in Chokwé making a difference in our children’s lives. Very recently they have received new uniforms. How beautiful they are!

      

School Feeding Program

In the biggest ALG program, the School Feeding Program in Manjangue, Chokwé, every day 900 children benefit of a lunch and a balanced and diverse nutrition. Children's favourite day is when the meal includes chicken or cow meat as it is the rarest food in their homes. 

ALG ensures that the children have access to nutritious food rich in proteins so they can grow up healthy. 

Graduation day for the local mummies!

After 4 months of learning and practising, the local mummies had a final exam! 17 Mamas put their hands on the dough and their feet on the pedal to put into practice the skills acquired in the courses of bakery and sewing that take place in the ALG Community Centre in Chongoene, Xai-xai.
At the Community Centre we have welcomed the examiners from the Institute of Professional Training and Labour Studies Alberto Cassimo (IFPELAC) who evaluated local mummies' performance and techniques. The 17 Mamas passed the exam and are now officially certified by IFPELAC!
The local mummies have a new skill that allows them to be more independent and ensure their self-sustainability.

 

                

 

Good luck to all Mamas and their future businesses that may arise!

Woman’s Day in Mozambique!

Today, the important Woman’s Day in Mozambique, there are so many brave and hardworking ladies we could pay tribute to in ALG. But we chose one that has been with us for almost 10 years….. and while the older amongst our Local Partners, she certainly keeps it up in dynamism and energy!

Grandma Etelvina gave lessons to very poor children under a tree. With her we built the Escolinha Flor da Infância  pre-school in 2010. Each year, apart from receiving 75 vulnerable children, she also takes our suggestions open-heartedly to give these children a better experience. 

This month we just introduced daily oral hygiene sessions with these beautiful personalised kits for each child.

Upcoming this year will be introduce of a mini-competition among our 3 pre-schools in Mozambique to approach didactic topics like environment and bullying.

Between all this Grandma Etelvina knows the accounts in the school by heart and sends us detailed and precise reports, with the support of young technician Abel.

Who wants to reach the age of 77 with this strength to help others in need?

#womenday #womenempowerement #charity #mozambique #education #dentalhealth #environment

New Uniforms!

The CCUPG program that gathers, in 2019 for the first time, children who attend the Escolinha do André, from the 1st to the 5th grade, and the bigger ones from the 6th to the 12th, will now have very special unfirms for the sponsoring children. The uniforms will be made by the colleagues Maria Gabriel and Gina Sitoe, that last year attendend the Sewing course, which was financed by the ALG as part of our support for Technical Education. The girls are already working on them and we’re excited to watch the results.

Congratulations Júlio !

Júlio, our dedicated student with a university scholarship recently became an engineer with a great contract at Bureau Veritas Mozambique.  This week he finally defended his thesis!

We now close the chapter on this great case of success supported many years by our Charity. In Júlio´s own words: “One more accomplishment and again I share my big gratitude for your support ever since I was at high school – here is my final confirmation, as I now graduated from my course of Mining Engineering with the average of 14/20. 

Back to School

The school holidays are over in Mozambique and ALG has welcomed all the children with open arms. The school calendar is different from Portuguese, but as also 3 periods:

First quarter: February 5 to May 15

Second quarter: May 20 to August 20

Third quarter: September 5 to December 13

We had already missed all the children and youngsters that benefit from our projects daily. These projects are only possible thanks to all the ALG supporters. We have already had the opportunity to deliver School Supplies for this New Year in the program Crescer com a UPG, at Xai-Xai!

We're hoping to have a year full os success!

School Feeding at ALG!

 Do you know which one is the biggest ALG Project? It’s the Feeding Program in Santa Luisa Marillac School in Manjangue!

In this project ALG assures a nutritious hot meal and drinkable water to 900 children from the 1^st to the 7^th grade, 46% female students. Every week day our dear cooks work hard to deliver a delicious lunch to all the students. ALG is proud in offering work opportunities to the local community contributing to the development of Local and Family Economy.

Between giant pots and pans our cooks, Mamas Angelica and Mama Sandra, keep the good mood. Lunch is ready for ALG children!

Flowers Scholarship

In Flor da Infância Pre-School (EFI), ALG children get a very special extra support!

Thanks to the funding given by Engº João Talone and Dra Luz Torrico, ALG every year hands in Merit Scholarships in EFI. The Flowers Scholarship Program nominates the children with better school outcomes and behaviour as well as the most disadvantaged children. Flowers Scholarships 2018 were given to 28 children who received not only school items such as a dictionary and a school uniform, but also food items. How happy were our children!

A BIG THANK YOU TO Engº João Talone and Dra Luz Torrico for the help and trust in ALG. 

ALG Internal Financial Controls Policy - Check and Ready to Go!

In line with the Charity Commission’s guidance, the Trustees of A Little Gesture A Great Help (ALG) have approved the adoption of an Internal Financial Controls Policy in October 2018. 

This policy aims to assist the ALG Trustees in the evaluation of the charity’s performance against the legal requirements and good practice recommendations.

The implementation of this policy results in filling in a self-assessment checklist every time ALG’s performance is reviewed.

The ALG Trustees review the charity’s performance in depth at least once every year. The answers provided in this self-assessment checklist are based on the Trustees’ knowledge of what actually happens in the charity.

The ALG internal financial controls policy will be reviewed by ALG trustees annually and will be updated on as need basis, in line with the Charity Commission’s guidance.

Please contact the ALG Trustees for any further information and our annual checklist!

A Great Little Fighter

Laura Cuna is a 13 years old HIV-positive girl, who attends ALG HIV Day Centre in Manjangue, Chokwé.  In 2018, Laura faced a very difficult period.

On the 12th of October Laura´s mum, Zaida Cuna, passed away. D. Zaida was HIV positive and for the last months was suffering of severe sickness episodes. Being already orphan from dad side, Laura became orphan from both parents. 

Laura and her siblings are now living with their grandma. After her mum passed away, Laura was deeply sad, and she was showing signs of frustration, anguish and depression. She stopped playing with the other children and started to isolate herself. 

The ALG Local Partner, Technician and Physiologist being aware of Laura´s fragility started to interfere to help Laura overcome this difficult period.

Everyone at the centre started to ensure that Laura would never be alone, and everyone tried to cheer her up. By the end of the year Laura started to show signs of improvements and now she already talks and plays with the other children, and even started to smile again. At this moment, Laura is preparing to start the 5th year at school. 

We are so proud of Laura and we cannot wait to see her smiling and shining this year!  

Resilience

Today was the book launch of the amazing story of Nicholas Orsini. Side by side with his cousin Brett, they went through a big adventure crossing the Continental US by bike from Florida to California while raising money to the ALH research. In this book Nicholas not only describes all the challenges he found in the most various ways but also the friendships he made through his journey.

Resilience is an adventure that reflects the capacities and limits of men, their persistency and determination.

You can now  get your book ( here ), 15% of the profits are going towards our charity A Little Gesture A Great Help in support of over 2’000 children in Mozambique. 

Our Christmas Campaign was a success!

Your donations contributed to a better education to the children in Mozambique! Thank you all !

Fair Bazaar + ALG

 You can now find our accessories at https://thefairbazaar.com/pages/a-little-gesture

Thank you Fair Bazaar for this partnership

Day 25 – ALG wishes you a Merry Xmas in 2018!

One more year is coming to an end. As our Christmas Calendar brought us 24 stories that marked our year, I am tasked to bring a final one.

This is the time of year for reflection and gratitude. And the more I reflect on it, the more grateful I am. What an amazing year you brought to ALG!

This was a year of growth - growth in our team, growth in our projects, growth in our amazing donor base. We continue to spread our wings and test new ideas with one thing in mind - the children. I am so proud!

• In our Sponsoring program, we continued to raise the quality of the monthly basket and we are continuously finding ways to create opportunities and support the path of the older children as they finish school;
• In our Education programs, the school feeding program continues to provide a daily meal to 900 children, and our preschools are giving a first start in life to 199 children. After school, 380 of our children are receiving extra tuition to help them break out the lack of study habits. We were proud to see Julio end his Uni Scholarship and get a job as an engineer that he never dreamed of before;
• In our Poverty relief program, the HIV program, change continues to happen. We were saddened by the loss of Belide but we deepened our intervention work achieved thanks to the work of a new psychologist working at the centre with each child;
• We did 7 family houses this year. This is a challenging implementation area, very resource intensive on the ground and we continue to provide better living conditions for our children and their families. The change you can see is just extraordinary!
• The Technical Education area is the one where the delta was more marked. We used the space of our pre school ESC to offer sewing and cooking courses to the young mothers of the community, we partnered with the local technical education institute to provide certified courses to 80 children across 3 schools;
• The Income Generation area is one where we continue to test new projects, ensuring we keep our motto of personalised work, identifying opportunities for a young mother or groups in the community to launch activities to help them break out of poverty, such as the new Wesley Saloon!

All this was possible thanks to the hard work of our amazing partners and local technicians on the ground, and the fabulous team of 7 we have at headquarters in Lisbon and 3 in London. The daily job is a never ending dedication to the children, to each single child and how to attend to them at any point in time that they need us. I admit it, it is sometimes operationally complicated to keep dealing with the daily ‘emergencies’ that come to us. But no-one hesitates to step up and go out of their way to be there. 

A final and most important note goes to you, our supporters. Between all the choices you could make in your daily life, you have chosen to support the ALG children. Between all the good causes you could find, you chose to help us break the cycle of poverty in the south of Mozambique.

We are grateful you are part of us. We are grateful we are together, for the children.

Thank you all, let’s cheer this year with a smile. Happy holidays wherever you are!

Sara

Day 24 – Who would know… we have athletes in Chokwé

In June we launched our SVP & SLM Academic-Sport competitions. The event started with a football match between the two Chokwé schools where ALG is present: SVP - São Vicente de Paulo vs SLM - Santa Luísa de Marillac. It was a fantastic day with a female and a male tournament. 21 children from SVP and another 21 from SLM participated. 

We discovered great talents among our girls: Leia Atalia Chivambo, Dercia Matavel and Leonilda Mavenga – all of them scored 1 goal! Among the boys Pedro Milion Cossa and Abelidade Tui stood out - both scoring 2 goals.

Considering all the fun we had, in July we launched the 2^nd Edition of the Academic-Sport competitions! In this edition we had a poetry contest and a ntxuva (traditional game) competition, which requires maths’ skills.  

This time our talents were Américo and Valdo in the ntxuva game, Henriques and Cruzeiro in poetry, and Danilton and Fernando stood out in football. 

The evens were a success and children loved them! The days were filed with a spirit of inclusiveness, friendship, enthusiasm and commitment. In 2019 we hope to repeat these events!

Help us to keep telling more stories like this in 2019, with a Little Gesture (here)

Day 23 – Lively Poultry!

With our extremely underprivileged children in mind were created the Basic Basket. It is distributed every month in every community where ALG is involved, namely Sta. Luísa de Marillac, São Vicente de Paulo and Xai-Xai Communities. Chicken is the main source of protein and it is distributed along with other food items. 

Considering the reality in Gaza Province, where most people live without electricity and, thus, without fridges, we are usually asked how do they preserve the chicken?! Chicken is delivered ALIVE, and then it goes straight to the pot! According to Moms, one chicken goes a long way, and it is the source of several meals!

Help us to keep telling more stories like this in 2019, with a Little Gesture (here)

Day 22 – Celebrating PEP stores donation

PeP is a chain of clothing and convenience stores spread all over Mozambique and South Africa. Pep’s delegate in Xai-Xai became aware of ALG’s work and, considering the stocks available, he made a generous clothing donationfor children (and respective families) attending Escolinha do André, EFI and ESC, all located in Xai-Xai.The donation was handed out in June, during a beautiful event, which was attended by Pep’s Delegates from Xai-Xai and Maputo. It was an extremely happy day for the donors who witnessed the happiness of children and families receiving these items and felt how sensible it is to be closer to the community!ALG’s stronger presence in the region is promoting solidarity among local traders, and besides achieving these donations, we also wish to increase the power of negotiation to benefit children. Our aim is to foster caring, supportive and dynamic communities.

         Help us to keep telling more stories like this in 2019, with a Little Gesture (here)

Day 21 – We have a new study room

One of the greatest surprises and milestones of the year was the construction of the new Study Room at SLM school which cost £3.788.

Despite being in force since 2011 at the SLM school facilities, only in 2018 we were able to provide a dedicated Study Room for this project. Now sponsored children and youngsters at SLM have a fit-for-purpose support area available not only to develop their academic skills, in subjects such as Portuguese and Maths, but also to develop study methods, and to have access to awareness sessions on hygiene, health, communication, professional careers, amongst others. Besides all this, during their weekly sessions, they receive a snack!
Currently, every week our monitor, Cristóvão N., welcomes and helps 154 students, 55% of them girls, from the 1st to 12th grade.

We believe that increasing study support contributes significantly to the academic progress of children and youngsters.

Help us to keep telling more stories like this in 2019, with a Little Gesture (here)

Day 20 – Hello Mr. Engineer!

Júlio Chaúque began his path with us through UPG Portugal Sponsoring Programme. This healthy boy grew up and he’s now a dedicated young man. His study habits and enthusiasm were rewarded, and in 2014 he became an ALG University Scholarship Holder attending an Engineering and Minerals Processing degree in Tete. 4 years later Júlio successfully concluded his degree and one year later, in 2018, he got his first job! Júlio is an Engineer working as a Sampling Coordinator at the Bureau Veritas’ Processing Plant, a company which provides coal quality analysis services for the Vale-Mozambique project.

Here’s a few words from Júlio: “This has been a long-term dream of mine. Finally, it came true, but I feared it might have never happened. I actually thought it would be an impossible mission until I found myself amongst a graduating class.  In 2014, when I arrived in Tete, without adequate skills in the social-academic area, I felt an overwhelming responsibility to succeed in achieving my degree. With the help of God and ALG, this mission was successfully accomplished. I want to send my warmest greetings to my Sponsors and to all the ALG team who provided me a great help made up of little gestures.”

Help us to keep telling more stories like this in 2019, with a Little Gesture (here)