Day 17: Full bellies learn better!

ALG After Class Study Centres are educational spaces to provide academic support to youngsters in school age, after classes. This support is free and provided in underprivileged communities with low schooling rates.

In 2016, ALG decided to strengthen the snack in SVP, and started to provide a meal with rice and beans. In SLM, the snack is composed of bread or cookies and juice, since children also benefit from the School Feeding Programme similarly financed by ALG. 

With £833 in SLM (Santa Luísa de Marillac) and £2.151 in SVP (São Vicente Paulo) – an average amount of £10 student/year – ALG finances assistant teachers for after-school follow-up (focusing on subjects such as Portuguese and Maths), occasional school materials and a daily snack; an essential factor to guarantee children’s attendance. 

In After Class Study Centres, a lot has happened during this last year! Volunteer Adriana made teaching more dynamic and taught our children many fun and different facts. In SLM, during the snack period, children learned basic health and hygiene habits which help to prevent diseases. In SVP, where we provide a warm and comforting lunch, children’s creativity was explored and they drew animals using the shape of their hands to create different figures. The guaranteed result was: lots of smiles!

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 16: HIV Day Care Centre and the hope of a better future!

To live at the ALG HIV Day Care Centre is a hope for a better future, which has been denied to so many children. Azélia Cuna is an example of that. She’s 11 years old and she’s on the 5 th grade. She lives with her mum and 3 older siblings (2 boys and 1 girl). She entered the Day Care Centre in 2013, where she loves to be, mainly because of the food, friends and playing football. At home she does not have running water, nor electricity. Mum works in a farming plot 1 hour way. Before being admitted at the Day Care Centre, she had several health issues: difficulties in breathing, headaches and dizziness when she took her medication. In 2013 everything improved! Now Azélia is a happy girl with good grades, she attends the activities in the Centre and is well behaved in classes. In her free time she is a happy chid and plays a lot with her colleagues.

Her dream is to be a nun! She cherished Sister Sidónia, who monitored her at the Centre until mid-2016, and she wishes to follow her footsteps.

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 15: The only meal of the day in SLM

Muchaque Vuma is 8 years old and attends SLM school in the morning. He’s a poor but happy child. Although he’s not part of UPG’s Sponsoring Programme, Muchaque is one of the 800 children benefiting from our School Feeding Programme which provides 1 daily meal to all the students at SLM school.In the beginning of the year he was thin, the draught has been severely affecting families in Chokwé District, preventing them from resorting to agriculture as the main source of income for families.

Now, Muchaque is revealing a good development and sound health. According to him, he usually has his meal in school and he “loves having lunch at SLM because he can eat more than at home”.

The ALG School Feeding Programme was created as an emergency response after the 2013 floods which devastated Chokwé region. Since then, ALG has made a huge effort to maintain this project. Despite its high costs, the positive impact is even greater. In a poor vulnerable context, aggravated by strong draught, the School Feeding Programme has been affected not only by the increase of local products’ price, but also by the consumption increase of children, for most of them this is the only meal of the day.

With the help of all and with only £4 per month, ALG is able to provide one free daily meal to fight school abandonment and incentivise gender equality by feeding children like Muchaque.

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 14: When creativity overcomes everything!

Despite the extreme poverty and a total different reality from ours, a child always finds a way to play. Creativity rules, and our children are so creative that if they do not have toys they make them up and build them themselves – Snooker by Nelson Sitoe!!!

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 13: Upside down chickens!

Throughout the year of 2016, the draught felt in some areas of Mozambique aggravated the already poor living conditions of families. Family farming plots allows several families to obtain a meagre income. This situation forced ALG to adopt a few emergency measures. Since June, the Basic Baskets delivered to the families of sponsored children included, on a monthly basis, a source of protein. It varies between chicken and sardines. For many local families, this is their only consistent source of food throughout the month. And the distribution day is a true joy, hundreds of chickens trying to fly with their legs held by really happy 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 12: Mum Noémia proud of her stand and new house

ALG’s team visits to the ground always originate stories and testimonials which fill us with pride and that we have to share with the everyone who support us and believes in our work.

Noémia, is the mother of UPG Sponsored child Talita, she’s HIV positive but she has been monitored and treated since 2013. Due to her fragile health condition, mum Noémia can only do a few cleaning jobs, laundering and other light activities, which were not enough to help supporting her 4 children. After the 2013 floods, mum Noémia started to be supported by the Income Generation Project in S. Vicente de Paulo, a small financial help to be able to create a small local sale business. 3 years later, during ALG’s visit, we were surprised to see what was achieved by this mum. Thanks to the success of her stand, mum Noémia managed to start building a house for her family. Although it is not concluded, this mum is an example of struggle and for this ALG helped this mum again with materials to finish the construction of her home and improve her family’s life.

The Income Generation Project in S. Vicente de Paulo was launched with the profits from the first crops distributed by ALG for the farming plot in SVP, right after the 2013 floods. After taking a few items to strengthen lunch for After School Support classes, a share of the revenues from this farming plot, is invested in these small-scale businesses for our mums. Since 2013 we have helped 12 mums and every single one of them are true examples to follow and ALG is so proud of all of them!

2016 brought us lots of news, one of them is a long-cherished project for ALG: the relaunch of the income generation project for 11 mums of UPG Sponsored children.

This mums (and two dads) are true entrepreneurs, whom ALG helps by financing small individual, family or community businesses, to encourage entrepreneurship in the rural communities and contribute for the family economic independence.

Supporting the income generation initiatives is to contribute for better living conditions for several families. 

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 11: License in sight for the new IT centre

Remember Arnaldo’s IT Centre? It was an innovative Income Generation project sponsored by ALG 2 years ago, jointly with Randstad and Instituto Camões. This ambitious and hardworking young man’s project is undergoing a legalising and licensing process to become a Training Centre, acknowledged by the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training!

The first steps have already been taken to obtain the Centre’s licence and we believe that in 2017, the IT Centre will be able to benefit even more youngsters with INEFP’s certification. The Centre is sought by youngsters who wish to take their IT course to enrich their curricula and acquire competences in the new technologies area. Despite the region’s huge economic deprivation, IT is a requirement for several work posts such as shop assistant or secretary.

ALG’s Income Generation initiatives finances small individual, family or community businesses, to foster micro entrepreneurship in the rural communities and contribute for economic family independence.

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 10: Nataniel spreads smiles at HIV Day Centre

We have a new boy in the HIV Day Centre! Nataniel is 7 years old and arrived in October because he’s HIV infected and needs our support. With the crisis and draught Nataniel’s mother, also seropositive, had to look for other jobs to be able to care for her 3 children. The father is deceased and the mother is the family’s only source of income. Nataniel and his mother are monitored by the Vincentian Sisters Daughters of Charity at the Carmelo Hospital. After being integrated in the HIV Day Centre where he has an adequate nutrition, access to school and can play with other children, Nataniel has a huge smile on his face every day.

When he arrived at the centre Nataniel did not speak Portuguese, only the local dialect “changana”. He was too embarrassed and shy, he didn’t play much with the other children and he was even more isolated because he did not speak the official language. Now he’s learning Portuguese to be enrolled in the 1st grade in 2017. The other children at the Centre welcomed their new friend with open arms! Now they all play together and are very committed in teaching Portuguese to little Nataniel. A beautiful sharing story for this Christmas!

The HIV Day Centre is a very ambitious project in SLM embraced by ALG in the end of 2013. It provides a full customized programme to HIV/AIDS infected children in an area where the disease has a strong incidence. With an annual cost of c.£26'113 or £67/month per child in 2016, this programme guarantees adequate nutrition, controlled medication and constant medical assistance for 32 children. With this Centre ALG wishes to relief local poverty and provide a dignified and healthier childhood to seriously ill children. With future capacity for 50 children, in 2016 the Centre welcomed 32 children on a daily basis. Children at the centre are still HIV infected but they are stronger, cherished, loved, fit to study and very, very playful!

Present this project to the corporate social responsibility department of your company or share it among friends. Contact us for more details!

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 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