Mozambique

World Vision is committed to partnering with the people of Mozambique to improve their lives today and to help enact sustainable solutions for the future of their children, families, and communities. World Vision's child sponsorship program plays a vital role in this partnership, with donors from the United States sponsoring more than 24,800 girls and boys. In addition to sponsorship, World Vision operates other programs that benefit communities in Mozambique. Highlights include:

• Providing the resources and training needed to fight malaria.
• Increasing food security for families.
• Responding to HIV and AIDS by encouraging community-based care and raising awareness.
• Enabling children to attend school by constructing 15 schools.
• Protecting more than 100,000 children against Malaria by distributing insecticide-treated bed nets.

World Vision began work in Mozambique as a response to the 1983 civil war and drought of 1984, where food was distributed to 100,000 affected people. Since then, some of World Vision’s major accomplishments have included:

• Distributing packets of agricultural supplies to those affected by war and drought and training farmers how to increase crop production and maintain soil fertility during the 1980s and 1990s.
• Providing preventive healthcare, including immunizations, to vulnerable groups and improving sanitation facilities and access to clean water during the 1980s and 1990s.
• Providing rescue operation assistance, food, and shelter to survivors of the devastating floods in 2000.
• Improving food security and natural resource management, promoting greater government assistance to farmers, and increasing food crop production since 2000.

Geography and people

Located on the southeastern coast of Africa, Mozambique has over 1,400 miles of coastline. Lagoons, coral reefs, and islands run along the coast while a large, dry plateau dominates the rest of the landscape. The weather is tropical with the rainy season from October to March, and the dry season from April to September.

Natural resources include coal, titanium, natural gas, hydropower, and graphite.

Mozambique has a variety of ethnic groups, with the Makhuwa in the north, the Sena in the Zambezi valley, and the Tsonga in the south. The people primarily speak local dialects and use Portuguese as a second language. English is used in schools and in business.

Families tend to be large and rely on each other for help. Rural houses typically have only one room and are made from mud bricks and a thatched roof.

History

Mozambique gained its independence in June 1975 after 470 years as a Portuguese colony. After the death of the country’s first president in 1986, a six-year civil war started between the government and anti-establishment guerillas.

Joaquim Chissanó won the country’s first democratic election in 1994. In the late 1990s, Mozambique posted some of the world’s largest economic growth rates, but natural disasters in 2000 and 2001 slowed the growth. The country continues to focus on economic improvement and to hold democratic elections.

Flooding in 2007 from Cyclone Favio and heavy seasonal rains in early 2008 destroyed homes, livestock, and crops and left an estimated 660,000 people in need of food assistance. A severe cholera outbreak in 2009 and 2010 infected thousands of people and killed over 100. More flooding in early 2010 affected hundreds of thousands of people.

Please pray for:

Children to have better access to the basics of life like clean water, healthcare, and education.

Refugees from drought to receive the help and resources they need to build better lives.