Day 9: Speech therapy brightens up EFI

In the end of the year, EFI welcomed a very special new ALG friend twice - Catarina. Catarina is a speech therapist, she lives in Mozambique and volunteered to train the children first and then the teachers. The proposal was extremely well welcomed by ALG, by the three teachers and by our Local Partner, our dear “Grandma” Etelvina, who witness the training enthusiastically. Mana Catarina is going to be a usual presence at EFI, offering a weekend a month to visit the school and spend time with the teachers.

With Catarina’s help teachers will learn new techniques and fun ways to teach and become more skilled to help the little ones, who are beginning to talk, to formulate their first sentences in Portuguese at Flor da Infância Pre-School! It was clear that communication is very important. The way we want to convey our ideas is crucial for our listeners to listen and to understand every word.

ALG Pre-schools are a joyful achievement. EFI in Xai-Xai, and ESC in neighbouring Chongoene, offer vulnerable children daily access to classes where they are busy, developing their skills and study habits. At the same time, we reduce pre-school marginality rates.

At an annual cost of £80 per child at EFI Flor da Infância Pre-school (Marien Ngouambi Village in Xai-Xai) and £98 per child at ESC Santa Catarina Pre-school (Chongoene Mission), ALG finances 2 meals per day, uniforms and teachers and specialized monitors, under Grandma Etelvina (EFI) and Sister Hortência (ESC) local supervision. In 2017 we will start funding the new Pre-school in SVP!

ALG Pre-schools provide poverty relief and promote an educated childhood for extremely underprivileged young children.

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 8: Eight years growing with ALG

After 8 years, children from the Escolinha do André (“EA”) school that were supported by the Sponsoring programme ran by our sister charity UPG Portugal grew up and left the school. These children typically attend the Escolinha until the 5^th grade and continue their studies in state schools near the area where they live. They would regularly come to receive our support in the EA as “external” children, always under the supervision of the Dominican sisters.

In 2016, ALG took direct responsibility for the “external” students in André’s Pre-school. We believe that this change allows us to monitor the children more closely and provide a more customized support during this difficult phase when many students consider abandoning school. At the same time, the Dominican Sisters can dedicate their full attention exclusively to the children in André’s Pre-school.

The support provided to the children focuses on Education. Our sister charity annual sponsoring fee finances enrolment fees, school material, school expenses, uniforms, guard, as well as extra support for healthcare and hygiene, according to the children’s needs. We have 38 Sponsored children we hope to continue to witness their successful growth!

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 7: Line MZ by ALG – Warm colours that fill your heart

This year ALG decided to invest in a Merchandising line which is a little bit different. Inspired by the Mozambican colours and materials we created MZ by ALG Line – a modern crafty line, made with love. Currently, we have four products: big bags made of straw, clutches, wood bracelets lined with capulanas (traditional Mozambican fabric) and pillows.

It is a 100% solidary line bursting with African colours, that fill our heart! 100% of the sales profit (net of seamstresses’ expenditures in Portugal, labels and packaging) revert to our 2500 children in Mozambique!

Throughout the year, we were in Spot Market in Amoreiras, and in the Stylista Summer and Winter Markets where we raised c.£2'532. Thank you for giving us this opportunity.

You can buy Line Mz by ALG here!

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 6: Learning Portuguese is fun in SVP!

Volunteers Bernardo and Filipe had many ideas and initiatives during the time they spent with ALG on the ground. One of the best was  ALG Sports’ week – an intensive week to learn Portuguese with the incentive of sports and one hot meal, offered to every UPG Portugal Sponsored children in SVP. And it was a success!

"The sports’ week programme started in the best possible way. In the beginning, we thought that children wouldn’t participate, but on the first day we had 75 children and the next day 83, their enthusiasm exceeded our expectations. The main goal of these two weeks is to teach Portuguese. Most children were from the 1st to the 4th grade. The older children were present to help and were very committed in assisting us. Besides the sports activities, we also developed several games and physical activities. Lunch was delicious and all the children enjoyed it."

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 5. Edson Bila another tale of strength!

Edson Bila, a new child under UPG Portugal´s Sponsoring programme and based in the SVP school, has a sad story to tell, but a very brave one too. He has a problem in his legs which prevents him from walking. To avoid missing classes this 11-year-old child goes to school by himself on a wheelchair. He is a peaceful but sad child. But a yellow t-shirt mana that ALG Trustee Patricia offered him, during her visit in October, brought a huge smile to his face. He was so proud and happy when he discovered out he was going to have a new sponsor!

When he grows up Edson wants to be a teacher. He speaks Portuguese very well and is well behaved!

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 4: If Miliona was President…

During an activity promoted in the After-School Support Course, UPG sponsored children were asked what they would like to change in their country if they were Presidents of Mozambique. Each one wrote an essay, but Miliona’s inspired us particularly:

If I was President of Mozambique I would change everything i.e. build schools, hospitals, banks, stores, churches, roads, bridges, markets and gardens. I would change the prices in stores because they are too high. 

• I would have more desks made for children to study;
• I would increase the number of teachers in schools;
• In recess, every child would eat, because many orphan children don’t have anything to eat and are homeless;
• I would build homes for orphan children;
• I would increase the number of doctors in hospitals;
• Everyone should be treated with love and tenderness;
• I would increase the number of hospitals; each Province would have 10 and each District 5 hospitals;
• Every mother and father would receive food for their children and for themselves;
• In the mines, every worker would receive a better salary, I would increase the work tools, and they would be provided with adequate clothes;

I would also increase fishing materials – fishing nets. I would invest the money in banks because most people do not save their money in banks. They dig a hole, put their money there and end up losing it.

In the two larger schools running ALG´s programmes - SLM and SVP - a total of 281 students attend After-School support classes. From £11 per month, per child, we manage to secure an adequate daily school follow-up after classes, reinforcing Portuguese and Mathematic subjects, with a monitor, and providing a snack or lunch which stimulates the students’ attendance.

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 3: A brave Grandpa full of love

The year of 2016 was particularly hard for the communities under ALG´s care in Chokwé, including the children sponsored by our sister-charity UPG Portugal. In this rural region, where it does not rain for over a year, the extended draught has prevented domestic crops to grow. Thus, the underprivileged families cannot rely on the land to survive as they have been doing for decades. 

ALG could not remain indifferent to each day that went by and to the several requests made – we had to help. 

During one of our team´s visit on the ground, in August-September, Joana and Anabela made their usual visits to the families with our Local Partner. They met Grandpa Simião wholes been called to our attention by volunteers Bernardo and Filipe. Simiao lives in a tent received in 2013, after the regional floods, with the whole family. This tent shelters one of his daughters, with two children (Rafael 8 years old and Márcia 6 years old) and a grandson (Andrisse with 8 years old), also is under his care after being abandoned by his mother. We immediately authorised for a basic food basket to be delivered to these children on the following food distribution day, making up the 200 Sponsored children we currently have in SVP. 

UPG Portugal began its Sponsoring Programme, in 2004, with 50 children. After more than a decade UPG and ALG support more than 850 sponsored children in the areas of Xai- Xai, Chongoene and Chokwé. Each child has a sponsor and has access to school and to nourishment, through school meals and through basic baskets for the whole family. Besides the material goods, Sponsoring brings care and attention to extremely underprivileged children.

A Little Gesture from £130 per year can be a Great Help for the life of a Mozambican child. Join this community!

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 2: Warm bread and cakes in SLM

In SLM every morning we feel the aroma of warm bread and cake in the air, just out of the oven! Sister Antónia and a few UPG Sponsored children prepare everything to have the first batch ready around 8am. The older and more responsible girls carry the bread and cakes in trays beyond the school gates. They go to the next-door Market where they are expected by many customers. The bread sells out fast, and the cakes follow. The girls come back to repeat the process in a few hours, they have fixed customers that rely on them.

The bread making activities were launched in 2015 as ALG invested funds to launch several technical courses in the school. The curse soon became self-sustainable and a success for the children and community who rely on fresh bread and warm cakes from the School. Some children are even already using Sister Antónia’s recipes to bake at home and sell cakes to the neighbours. This is the goal of technical courses – to ensure that children acquire technical skills to be self-sufficient, without dropping out of school to provide for their family.

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Day 1 - Eight new homes to brighten up a year of draught!

This year ALG financed the construction of eight new homes for eight families under the UPG Sponsorship Programme in S. Vicente de Paulo, Chokwé. The area, strongly affected by draught during this last year and half, is characterized by the precarious construction of small dwellings made of mud. With time these houses start to deteriorate. Many have the walls with holes, that the families try to mend using plastic bags, cloths or boards, when they can find them. Most of them is easily exposed to burglary, when it rains they get flooded and, in many cases, they end up in ruins. 

This year sisters Maria and Delfina, Isaura, family Williamo, Sordência, Nunes, Neusia, Assane, and Andrisse received a new house financed by ALG. A safe and resistant brick house, where they can spend the night without fear, and face the wind and rain without having the walls collapsing over the children’s heads. This year ALG invested a total of c. 7,526£ in these constructions.

Having a home is a vital aspect, complementary to UPG’s sponsoring activity, within ALG Infrastructure area. The construction or recuperation of homes extends ALG’s help beyond education and nourishment, complementing these objectives with a dignified environment for families to live in. 

Housing provides children more that a roof. Through housing rehabilitation support, the right to Food and Housing, as per the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child, is fulfilled. A dignified place to shelter children promotes their psycho-social development, and feelings of protection, comfort and security. 

ALG has been offering this festive calendar to all ALG Friends since 2011. This year, you can also print a high definition version for only 1£! Donate here

Welcome to the ALG Xmas Calendar 2016!