Before picture

This is the Mateque School we have been working with.  This is what it looked like when we first started.  What you see in the far right bottom corner is also the door frame all worn out.  This school has only 6 classrooms.  Those six classrooms are to hold 1700 students who will be arriving to school on February 4, 2016.  Izidro is the school principle and is working hard with his community to refurbish these six classrooms to be secure so we can provide them with 140 desks and 11 teacher's desks and chairs before the children arrive.  We just recieved these pictures while we were in Johannesburg of the refurbishing.  We went out to visit after we returned to see this great progress.

Above Room refurbished

Wow!  What a difference!  We provided them with the bricks, the mortar, the bars, the doors and the electrical to refurbish with.  This is what we saw when we visited this week.  That is fast work.

Students attend school in 3 sessions.  They start early and are at school for 4 hours.   

Here's the metal door for security

door frame and metal door

The second session comes for 4 hours and then the third.  6 classrooms with 50 students each with 3 sessions still leaves classrooms out under the trees but at least some of the classes will have desks and lights and texbooks.  The textbooks will be covered by community members and students.  Izidro says he will put the 1 and 2nd graders and the 6th graders in the classrooms with desks.  The other will attend under the trees.  Our internet is being stubborn, not letting me post anymore pictures here.  I wanted to show you how they chisel out the pathway for the electrical wire in the bricks they laid.  Then when they run the wire, they patch up the chiseled out path.

Chiseled path for electrical wires

 There, finally it posted.  Izidro and Stan are standing next to a chiseled wall inside one of the classrooms.This is the first they will have had electricity in the classrooms.

[Stan] We are working on a major initiative that was opened by Salt Lake.  It is in Beira and will be a training in Maternal and Newborn Care for healthcare providers.  Training specialists from Utah will be here for a week to train.  We are helping with getting the arrangements taken care of like meals, lodging, transportation, printing of training materials, coordinating with the Ministry of Health, following up on getting the equipment thru customs, etc.  This program has been done here in Mozambique at least 5 times in years past.  I do not know the results, but there is a follow up process that we will be involved in as well.  I am not sure how they monitor how many babies are actually being saved, but it is bound to help.  The infant mortality rate is very high here caused by many factors, including malaria, no access to healthcare, and little or no training in infant resuscitation.
We love the work.  We want you to know your donations to the church's humanitarian fund is watched over and we strive to utilize it properly.  Please continue to contribute. 

water lines run

This is a water meter.  They started out with one water faucet in the playground.  Now they have a "turn off" valve inside one classroom so they can turn the water on each recess and turn it off again when school is not in session.  We had been there when the students had left the water running.  Now the students can't do that.  There are also 3 water faucets with the new water lines run throughout the playground.

Happy Izidro with the school computer provided by community

One of the things the school had asked for was a computer.  We did not provide that for them but because we were able to provide the refurbishing and the textbooks and the electrical materials, and desks, the community bought this computer for the school.