"Invisible" young people get a face at Mozambique Fashion Week 2022

Jovens “invisíveis” ganham rosto na edição 2022 do Mozambique Fashion Week

This year's fashion week in Mozambique was marked by a fashion show by children, teenagers and young people who live on the streets of Maputo. This is a solidarity initiative that brings together various institutions and seeks to give visibility to the so-called "invisible" and integrate them into society.

The 2022 edition of Mozambique Fashion Week made history. 16 teenagers and young people who live on the streets of Maputo walked the catwalk, became models and the spotlight made visible those who are practically invisible to society every day.

Ruy Santos is in charge of the Kaya Project, a space for economic and social inclusion, which decided to strip away prejudices and dress in style and glamour the young people and teenagers who hours before were roaming the streets of the city looking for ways to survive."Today we have 16 beneficiaries of Kaya who are going to parade and show this collection. They are the invisible, those people who are ignored in our society and who we want to give a chance to be seen and to believe that they can be part of it too, that they are part of society and that from now on they can dream of transforming their lives," he said, as quoted by RFI.

This initiative, says Ruy Santos, aims to plant dreams in order to one day reap totally transformed lives. "This is just a starting point, but then people will be entitled, they'll have the opportunity to have professional training, they'll have professional training in dressmaking and sewing, information technology, hairdressing, barbering, beautifying, manicures and pedicures and other partnerships that we establish," he says.

"The idea for this collection was born out of this context of social inclusion, inspired by these people who society, we, label and forget and who are given no other option but to survive every day." This excerpt from the text "os Invisíveis" by Soraia Abdula portrays the harsh day-to-day reality of those who try to survive on the streets of Maputo and who try to survive economic and social exclusion, physical and psychological abuse and being treated like nobody. Now, Soraia Abdula helps to find antonyms and turn them into someone else.

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