What are we working on right now?
Mateque
Chalkboards for classes under the trees and blocks for building |
bids for latrines |
We have been considering another project with this primary
school. The first picture shows where
our last project ended and where the new project without us has been
engaged. We helped secure 6 classrooms
and provided desks and closets for these 6 rooms in the last project. Since then, the school administration and the
community have continued their goals to provide classrooms. As it is, there are still 15 classes held
outside under the trees. Building these
3 classrooms will allow 9 more classes a chance to maintain consistent
education even when it is storming outside.
The second picture is a view of the three classrooms
under construction.
The third picture shows the latrine that is positioned at
the end of the long line of 9 classrooms.
The school plan was to renew this latrine to include the growing
population at the school and involve better hygiene for the students.
We were so pleased to see this progress. They told us their plan before we left the
past project. To see them really going
forward with the plan they have in place shows real character. There is a champion in their director at this
school. This is an ingredient we need in
place for true success to be achieved from a Humanitarian Project.
We feel a way to teach the Welfare Principles in this area
is to help them with part of the plan they already have in place. “Build from
areas of strength”. In this way, they
may be able to achieve their goal a little sooner than expected. It also may help inspire them to keep working
hard. “You can be rewarded for your
efforts”.
Building from areas of strength was a hard one to get into
my head. The most needed were being left
behind by looking for the ones with strength already. However, those most needy will learn from
those with strength much better than they will learn from a couple of white
Senior Missionaries from the States.
We cannot come in with an Elder and Sister Petersen idea of
how to make education for their children better! We have learned letting the people of this
area solve their own problems in the Maputo way of solving them and then
helping them accomplish those solutions is the Lord’s way. These amazing people
are “Children of the most high….lawful
heir …all things are given you which are expedient for …”(D&C 86:9,
Psalms 82:6, 2 Ne. 2:27) Trying to solve their problems for them is only
demeaning, demoralizing, and condescending!
We have gotten three bids for the renewing of the latrines
and have hinted that if they finish the 3 classrooms before we finish the
latrines, we can help furnish these classrooms with desks, cabinets,
chalkboards, etc. Their continued
progress on the construction of the 3 classroom is necessary. We could still pull out and not do the
project with them if their progress stops.
We are very hopeful and pray for their success daily.
Malhazine EPC
Here is a school in a district we have been impressed with. The District Director has a grasp of the
Welfare Principles and encourages his school directors to follow them. The third picture is of the school director
at Malhazine EPC and Elder and Sister Petersen in front of her school. Her school was involved in an accident in the
city where much of her school roofs were damaged. She presented us with a plan of action she
and the school council had come up for the next five years. We were able to pick a few things on their
plan that we thought we could help with.
One of them was repairing roofs on 3 classrooms. Picture 1 is the before picture of the roof
on classroom 7. Picture two is the roof
ripped off preparing to replace it.
This school was required to come up with 10% of the total
money owed to repair these three roofs, and the water situation which includes
their latrine. It took 2 months but the
community finally paid the contractor the 10% and he has started construction
this week. We are hopeful this project
will be completed within the month of March.
This school is responsible to write a curriculum for hygiene
training which will be incorporated in the curriculum at school right away in
preparation for the renewed latrine to be finished soon. They are actively working toward this goal. We are hopeful the hygiene/maintenance plan
will be successfully applied here. This
success can only be seen after time has passed.
Eduardo Mondlane EPC
This is a school we visited over a year ago and decided
against working with them at that time.
This year, we discovered their plan of action and have decided thru
prayer that we could help them accomplish their goals. This is a school that sustained damage in the
storm of November, 2016. This school has
40 classes under the trees with 13 classrooms being used to educate 3900
students. Their plan includes building a
few classrooms every year until they can house all the students. However, while trying to accomplish their
goal, the wind came and blew off the roof of two of their classrooms and
damaged another 4 classrooms roofs. We
looked over their plan of action and said we would work with them on repairing
their roofs and providing some desks.
We presented their part of our partnership. They needed to provide 10% of the money
needed for the project. They are still
working toward this goal. We cannot move
forward until they at least do this part of the agreement. If they cannot come up with 10%, we will have
to cancel the project.
Malhampswene and
Lingamo Clinics
Working with the Matola Provincial Government has been
good. They had two clinic projects well
underway. We could see we could support
them in their goals by providing them with furnishings for these two clinics. They provided the list of items wanted and we
delivered the furnishings to them. “Turn
over” ceremonies have not been scheduled yet. We are hopeful we can schedule
them within the next few weeks.
Major Initiatives:
Vision
Mehrs, specialist in the vision department, are coming March
20-24. We have appointments scheduled
for them to developed a possible project in the vision department.
Helping Babies Breath
The Maputo Health Ministry will be running a class,
specifically for Heidi McSweeney and her companion to teach the principles of
Helping Babies Breath in April.
Water
Swaziland has yet to get us the date for the
“Turn over” ceremony for the project finished there. We provided material for 7 well refurbishings
that have been completed.
Outline of what we have done and what we are doing.
Things we are working on now.
I.
Schools
a.
Marracuene District
i. Eduardo
Mondlane
ii. Mateque
b.
Kumabukwana District
i. Malhazine
II.
Hospitals
a.
Malhampswene
b.
Lingamo
III.
Major Initiatives
a.
Mozambique
i. Vision
ii. Helping
Babies Breath
iii. Wheelchairs
b.
Swaziland
i. Water
Things we have completed.
I.
Schools
a.
District Namaacha
i. Impaputo
EP
b.
Marracuene
i. Mateque
EP
ii. Joaquim
Chissano EP
iii. Ricatla
EP
c.
Kamabukwana
i. Inhagoia
EPC
II.
Water
a.
Swazi Water
III.
Major Initiatives
a.
Mozambique
i. Vision
b.
Swaziland
i. Helping
Babies Breath
ii. Water
Things we have worked on but did not find a champion. We let them go with no project.
25 possible projects as close as I can figure were not moved
forward.
This has been a good review for us to see what we have been doing for the past 19 months. We hope to finish all we have started before we go home in 4 months.
Sister Teril Petersen