As of yesterday, two schools with 4,500 students each have three new classrooms. Project Karibu, promoted by the NGO Helpo, allowed thousands of children like Quiquibe, Abdala, Joaquina and Lidi to return to their studies.
When armed groups attacked Mocímboa da Praia in 2019, Quibibe Abibo had no choice but to flee with his parents, sisters, and grandmother, leaving everything behind. Similarly, Abdala Abdul escaped with his parents, siblings and nephews to Macomia, 140 km to the south.
At the sound of gunfire, Joaquina Navio also fled with her family from Muatide, saving only their lives. Lidi Sefo escaped from Quissanga Sede.
The past of these four children, now aged between 8 and 15, follows a storyline too similar to that of thousands of others displaced by the attacks in Cabo Delgado, the country's northernmost province.
Today, each of them has the possibility to build their own future and to follow a vocation.
The change in perspective has a simple explanation: in their paths came school. Two schools, in fact - the Escola Primária Completa Mahate and the Escola Primária Completa Carlos Lwanga, both in Mahate, a peripheral neighborhood near the Pemba airport, where the four children now live, and where they study.
These two schools, which together receive almost 4,500 children, many of whom have been displaced by the war, each opened three new classrooms yesterday, in a joint initiative of the Galp Foundation and the Camões Institute, as part of the Karibu project, developed by the non-governmental organization Helpo.
Its focus is on combating all factors that contribute to children dropping out of school.
The Karibu project was launched by Helpo about a year ago in the Mahate neighborhood, which allowed Quiquibe, Abdala, Joaquina and Lidi to resume their studies, interrupted by their odysseys.
Quibibe, with an easy smile, belongs to the Mwani ethnic group and arrived in Mahate in February 2020, hitchhiking on a truck. He lives in his uncle's house along with 15 other people. Abdala lives at a family friend's house with 14 other people. He is a child full of energy and little by little he is improving his Portuguese. Lidi wants to be a doctor.
The inauguration of the six new classrooms was attended by the Governor of Cabo Delgado Province, Valige Tauabo, the Portuguese Ambassador in Maputo, António Costa Moura and the Provincial Director of Education in Cabo Delgado, Ivaldo Quincardete, as well as representatives of the entities involved, the schools and the students.
The day ended at the Samora Moisés Machel Provincial Public Library, with the inauguration of the exhibition Escola do Caminho Longo, with the stories of 20 other children, too similar to Quiquibe, Abdala, Joaquina and Lidi, whose lives were also rescued with Helpo's help.
The stories were collected by writer Maria João Venâncio and photographer Luís Godinho, in a project sponsored by the President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and will be turned into the book "The village the monsters swallowed", in an edition supported by the Galp Foundation.