Primary School

So important is Primary School education to us, that this was one of the first things that Vila Maninga began in 1991 (even before the Peace Accord was signed after the war!). It began with 90 children under the shade of the mango tree, 1 blackboard and a teacher. It progressed into the dereclit-bullet-ridden shell of the old-tobacco barn, then tents and then onto large rondavel classrooms. About 10 years ago, at the request of the Mozambican government education department, we built a new Primary School which has 8 classrooms.

So many thousands of children have gone through its doors that at the end of 2009, it had to be refurbished with new floors and doors. It now has 800 children that pass through its doors daily and where the teachers have to hold the attention of up to 50 little faces each day. No mean feat! They learn in hot-seating arrangements (to accommodate as many kids as possible) and it is the regional exam centre and a beacon school for the area. We're well on the way to self-suffiency in the school as the government education deparment now supports the 18 teachers with most of them living in the community. 

In 2009, we saw the need to build more classrooms. Firstly the school was still growing and secondly we recognised that many of the littler children couldn't walk the many kilometres to get to school. So  2 extra classrooms have been buiit 6km from the main school and an office which will educate about 150 children. It now has 4 different grades having school in these 2 classrooms using hot-seating arrangements and from next year it will have 5 grades as the need is growing. It is fast becoming a new school in its own right.

On top of these we are supporting 21 children to go to Primary school in the Inhambane province who otherwise would have no access to school.