Global Citizen Education

In Mozambique, Africa, many children are forced to live in constant hunger at the garbage dump in 40 degree temperature with the smell of burning plastic and flies buzzing around. Our student volunteers traveled from Canada to provide wound care, distribute medications and bread and water, and offer support to the children and families to rebuild community and morale, despite living in such horrible conditions.

A student volunteer spent a week in Maputo, Mozambique's economically stable yet somewhat dangerous capital city. The most difficult outreach days were those she spent at the Boccaria, the city dump, where families live in the most desperate of situations. The smell of burning plastic in the 40 degree weather, the relentless buzzing of flies and dirty, hungry and crying children is still a very real experience that burned into her memory forever. Her heart was heavy as she struggled to understand why life is so unfair for these poor people—how can such a reality exist for so many people throughout Africa?.

While at the city dump, she and her team provided basic wound care, distributed necessary medication and bread and water, offered support for the children and families and their broken homes, and gathered the children together for games and songs to help build community and morale despite living in such horrible conditions. They met regularly with the grandmothers who were overwhelmed with care giving and feeding their extended families. The team had built such a strong relationship with the grannies and aunties in the area that they would leave their children with the volunteer team for play and education so that they could do the laundry, collect water and farm the land. This opportunity was a blessing for the most overworked and unrecognized group in Africa—grannies—and their appreciation was overwhelming as they continuously offered food and chicken to us, an incredible sign of genuine appreciation.

The team spent most of the time in Maforga, working closely with local and foreign nurses, local support staff, and workers at the orphanage. There were over 300 babies on the program, which indirectly meant over 600 people were supported by the clinic, as grannies, mothers, caregivers and older siblings would accompany the babies to the clinic who are also need medical attention; this was also the first point of medical care for all staff, workers and children at the orphanage.

The team took part in numerous home visits as many villagers would notify us of dying patients that were not able to walk the many miles to the clinic. They also organized medical education to groups of caregivers to help create sustainable living and selfcare for many of the rural communities—particularly during drought season which brought water contamination, high rates of malaria and rampant cholera outbreaks.

The team worked with the toddlers and some of the older children at the Maforga orphanage in Gondola providing much love and compassion to these resilient but also very broken children. A few volunteers who had musical instruments were able to write songs and lyrics expressing the emotion of these children's lives.

When the days were too much to bear, the team joined with the children and encouraged them to give voice to their pain through song. As a form of music therapy in Western culture, the team and the children created songs together, raising their voices in English, Shangan, and Portuguese. It was amazing to see the universal language of music drawing hearts together as one large group transcending culture, race, age and gender. The volunteers witnessed daily tragedies and miracles in the hospital and throughout the village, yet were still able to sing and dance together and hope for a better life for the children of Mozambique, the future of the nation.