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February 2005:

 

FIELD VISITS IN MOZAMBIQUE

Training of a core team for wide scale implementation of ICDP in Mozambique continued throughout February.

There were several field visits to areas where ICDP intervention will take place:

- The first visit was to a local NGO called “Reencontro”  that operates in the outskirts of Maputo in the very poorest areas where AIDS represents a serious problem. The combination of extreme poverty, general low health and HIV/AIDS combines to destroy the social cohesion and commitment of the family and its caring capacity. In one of the homes we visited there were several children between 2 and 6 years of age,  abandoned by their father – who is alcoholic and appears now and then, beats and behaves brutally towards the children. One of the children was crying with pain from an infection in one leg which looked quite serious; the father had refused to go to hospital because he did not think it was serious. He was away and left the children alone. The mother had died from AIDS some time ago, and the father was also most probably infected. The women next door took care of the children to some way, although she also behaved roughly and insensitively towards them. The general lack of care is extremely serious. The NGO Reencontro provides some support particularly with daily meals.

- The other family we visited had in some sense a better situation, because the father was emotionally alive and communicative, although very ill and thin due to AIDS. He was lying on a mat in the yard in front of the house, which looked more like a shack, where he lives with four children. He could barely walk, but was happy to speak to us. He seemed to have had a good job linked to European Community’s representation in Mozambique. When he became ill with AIDS they helped him to get to hospital, but after that he did not hear anything more from the EU and their humanitarian work in Africa.  He was now alone with the children. His wife had died early also due to AIDS and now it was in fact the children who cared for him – with some support from Reencontro. Soon this will be a child-headed family as the father will probably die within a short time.

- The third institution was a kindergarten in Portuguese style, with well-dressed middle class children singing and clapping collectively in well-equipped localities with an ambitious leader who inspired her staff. It could have been anywhere in Europe the standard was quite high.

- As contrast to this middle class institution,, we visited next the institutions for abandoned orphans and sick children. This is a state-owned institution called “1st of May”. This was a shocking experience. All kinds of abandoned children were dropped into this institution, children with cerebral palsy were lying alone on the ground without any care, crawling along, without any human contact other than what they could do by touching and pushing each other. Some of them were so thin that they seemed like skeltons – clearly some of them would soon die… There was no medical care in the institution at all, and to take them to hospital they would have to walk all the way in the heat and only those who could walk would get medical care. There were young children sitting alone in a state of apathy and depression. In the second floor there was a ward for infants and young children. This was also a tragic sight – isolated children depressed, just sitting and looking in front of them, or infants in bed craving for attention and care, but without anybody paying attention and being emotionally available because of the understaffing and the general resignation of the staff…W hat came as an additional shock, was that the caregivers or the staff, did not seem to understand the situation, they described this as normal and they  complained that the government only gives the institution 100 US dollar to run the whole place! This means that the World Food Program provides some food and there is an Italian organization that has bought some dolls and toys and painted the wall, but nobody seems to recognize the terrible suffering of the abandoned children both physically and psychologically. In this institution there were only 4 caregivers for more then 80 children, a large part infants! During weekends only 1 caregiver!

Finally we visited a village for street children run by the Norwegian Pentacostal NGO. This village was located outside Maputo in nice rural surroundings with an enormous space around. We talked to the staff who are going to be trained in the ICDP Program. Most of the children seemed to be above 8-9 years up to 18-20. This village serves like a substitute home for them with rotating housemothers for about 8 children. In this respect this village is different from SOS villages which have permanent “mothers” or caregivers for the children in each house. The children attend the local school and in addition there are different types of vocational training possibilities inside the compound. It all looked clean and orderly and a great contrast to the orphanage that was referred to above. The religious aspect was quite evident and it may be that some of the more rebellious street children may have some problem to adapt to this type of decent orderly and religious environment.

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