Day 10: Welcome to ALG dear Santos Uqueio

Santos Uqueio is 9 years-old and lives in Manjangue, Chokwé. He lives with his aunt and uncle. He is an orphan and has three siblings living in Maputo.

Santos comes from an extremely underprivileged family and this year, this child with “a heart of gold” caught the Vincentian Sisters’ eye during their Community visits!

Santos’ aunt and uncle are very dedicated to their work. His uncle is a night security guard, in Chokwé. His aunt is a farmer and works night and day on their farming plot.  

Santos is in 3rd grade at Santa Luísa de Marillac school. He walks to school every day with a smile on his face! Despite the school being far from his house, Santos says “the distance travelled each day is of little importance, the important thing is to study”. Santos wants to be a policeman when he’s older, to lock up all the criminals and keep everybody safe.”

With our help Santos will be able to fulfil his dream. We’ll keep you posted on his achievements!  

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Day 9: Hurray for mosquito nets

Volunteers Virgínia, Pedro and Olga were very touched, during one of the visits to the ALG families, with the severity of malaria in the region – and the relative ease with which mosquito nets can prevent the disease. They decided to create an ALG challenge – a campaign to raise funds along with their families and friends!

The Three Mosquiteers campaign goal was to raise funds to buy 1000 mosquito nets. The result was much better than expected, with £1´500 raised, 750 nets were distributed in Xai-Xai and another 750 in Chokwé (this initiative benefited 645 children, with 2 mosquito nets per children) the remaining ones were delivered to our local technicians, without forgetting our pre-schools.

Thank you: Pedro, Virginia and Olga, for this initiative and thanks to everyone who joined them turning another ALG Challenge into a success!

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Day 8: This Xmas, give a charitable gift with the MZ Line by ALG

ALG MZ line is handcrafted, modern and made with lots of love in Mozambique.

This Christmas, give it to your friends and family. Help us to grow and fill your heart with the African colours’ warmth - 100% solidary! A Little Gesture a Great Help improves the lives of thousands of underprivileged children. Our sister charity UPG Portugal sponsors over 800 children every year providing them access to education, basic meals and health services. Our projects support local Education (pre-school, after-class support, literacy classes, school meals and university scholarships), Infra-structures (family huts, water wells and basic sanitation), Poverty eradication (HIV cases), and Sustainability programmes (technical courses and income generation activities), benefiting c. 2500 children every year.

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Day 7: We finally have toilets at ESC!

In the heat of the summer, ALG had another successful campaign. We built a toilet in Sta. Catarina pre-school. Up to then, the existing facilities at this pre-school were a basic and degraded latrine for 60 children every year... With this longed for new infra-structure, and clean sanitation this time set in stone, children will acquire better and healthier hygiene habits and improved conditions at school.

During this campaign we raised £390 and now we have a more dignified and healthier environment for our children. Thank you to all who helped us!!

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Day 6: "We see the world more clearly now!"

By the end of May, Macia held its annual Health Fair! Macia village is located at 60km south of Xai-Xai, Chongoene and 50kms west of Chokwé.

On the ground, ALG found out that the Nhancutse Programme had two sisters almost blind - Laura and Cacilda. After establishing a few contacts, we arrived at Clínica dos Olhos (Eye Clinic) in Xai-Xai, through one of our providers – PITAMBAR Stores. The owner is an active member of the Local Hindu Youth Community.

Fortunately, it was a lachrymal sac issue, and after obtaining a diagnostic and adequate treatment the problem was easily resolved!

The Cossa twins from the Bungane programme, who suffer from strabismus (despite not being operable), are similarly monitored by the Xai-Xai eye clinic, also attended the Health Fair.

The Hindu Community regularly invites a team of Cuban doctors with several areas of expertise, including ophthalmology, to visit Mozambique!

At this Health Fair they performed eyesight screenings and we took a few children to be checked by the doctors. Everybody was happy!

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Day 5. A magnificent Documentary – Tales of Resilience

In 2016, volunteers Niko and Mattias (Chroma Pictures) visited Mozambique with ALG to shoot a very special documentary. The aim was to record ALG’s work on the ground, focusing on the lives of children growing up with our support like Racilia, Arone, and buddies Lenço and Ernesto.

Tales of Resilience, the magnificent documentary depicting our children’s tales of resilience and courage, was premiered in March, in special event hosted in London: ALG’s Gala. In 2017 we celebrated 6 years of existence in UK, and we gathered 220 guests at the Portuguese Embassy to celebrate with us. Besides feeling proud of this documentary, we were ecstatic with the £77 thousand pounds raised to invest in our project in Mozambique.

 

With these funds ALG secures the equivalent to almost 12 months of ground operations in the Projects’ area.

 

This documentary will keep the stories of 4 special children who, with your help, fight every day to achieve a better life, forever in our hearts.

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Day 4: An amazing EFI Scholarship holder

Remember our dear Anita Jorge Zitha, a stellar student from EFI pre-school? During the past years she has been awarded a merit scholarship through our Flowers’ Scholarship Programme.

Anita’s life has not been easy. In the past year her mum and grandmother, with whom she lived, passed away. Then she was living with an aunt who, unfortunately, also passed away! It seemed almost too unbearable to believe…With only seven years old Anita is now living with her grandmother’s husband. This very determined and brave little girl didn’t not give up studying but, with such turmoil in her life, her school results were affected. Grandma Etelvina, EFI’s founder and ALG Local Partner in this project, started tutoring Anita at EFI after-school. The effort paid off and Anita just received her Portuguese test results - 15! Congratulations Anita, you are a brave and strong girl!!

The Flowers’ Scholarships are a merit programme launched in 2011. ALG and Ribacapital joined forces to reward best students, from 4 to 5 years of age, at Escolinha Flor da Infância. Every year we select 8 children with outstanding results and school performance throughout the year.

The 4-year-old students receive an award (42£) converted in a Basic Basket and School Material.

The 5-year-old students receive a multiannual scholarship (430£), split in annual instalments of 81£) until completing their primary education. This amount includes a Basic Basket and setting up a savings bank account jointly with their guardian, accessible only when the child is 18 years old. Our goal is to award merit and dedication from a young age!

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Day 3: Meet ALG’s new Local Partner in the communities!

Rural communities are an extensive ALG programme implemented in the underprivileged areas of Chongoene, Nhancutse, Banhine and Bungane. It involves c.300 children sponsored by UPG Portugal. The Project’s area includes building huts, a pre-school, scholarship holders, water wells, etc.

ALG policy on the ground has always been based in being close to our beneficiaries through Local Partners – respected community members who describe us, on a daily basis, the difficulties and successes of our programmes. These Partners are also the ones who guarantee the budget implementation and who account for every expenditure, made with the help of your donations, in a transparent way.

 Since April, ALG set up a partnership with diocesan priests: Father Alex and Father Elpídeo. Father Alex is continuing Vincentian Father Amine’s hard work, before being transferred to another region in Mozambique. Father Elpídio is supervising our programmes in the area and, under his supervision, this year EFI pre-school flourished with an excellent supervisor - Cremilde, new toilets and happier children.

 ALG continues to invest in narrowing relationships with Local Partners - local communities’ active members mainly but not exclusively, from religious orders. Our daily work with Local Partners enables us to consolidate our policy aimed at investing and controlling, in an efficient and timely way, the funds from Portugal and UK. We aim to break the poverty cycle in Xai-Xai, Chokwé and Chongoene in a transparent way, with a close relationship and visible impact for the donors.

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Day 2: This Xmas, fill your stocking with an ALG project!

Want a different present for your family and friends, but don’t know what? ALG gives you a hand …how about supporting a project in their name? We give you 3 options to for your donation:

• The School Feeding Programme, for just 3£ per month each child has a daily meal at the SLM Santa Luísa de Marillac school – Total Project Cost £28,530 annually (for 900 children)
• Escolinha de Stª Catarina (ESC) pre-school, for 11£ per month each child has access to teachers, didactic materials and meals – Total Project Cost £8,180
• Technical Courses at SLM and SVP schools – in the first Phase 24 students enrolled in Electricity Course for a  Cost of £2,199

Such a great idea right?! For detailed information please contact us at: geral@umpequenogesto.org

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Day 1: Our SVP Pre-School is one-year old!

A year ago, ALG celebrated Christmas announcing the inauguration of another ALG pre-school – this time in our S. Vicente de Paulo project, in Chokwé.

 

Now, 12 months later, 30 extremely underprivileged children have free access to pre-school education, one daily meal and loads of care and attention from our cheerful teacher Florinda.

 

Volunteer Virgínia C. visited this school and taught our children, between 3 and 5 years old. In her own words....

 

“These were days filed with giving and receiving. I taught them to count to 5, and to write numbers 1 and 2, they taught me changana (local dialect). Similarly, to everything else in ALG … we give...and they fill our hearts with beautiful smiles”

 

Thank you to everyone who, throughout the year, helped us achieving this goal. Our special thanks go to the young Brazilian family A. who kindly sponsored the whole school in 2017!

 

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