The name
The participants of the projects, which are supported by the Organization Mutanyana Weru, live together in small family groups. These groups vary from 2 to 6 persons. The prime goal of the offered help is to guide these people to selfsupport and independance.
The Organization in Maputo supports the participants on a project basis. It supplies housing, health care, cost of living, education etc. with the aim to help the people on their way to economic independance.
Mutanyana Weru : A community after a time of rehabilitation and as a start of re-integration into the local society.
In order to achieve these goals (rehabilitation and re-integration), the help is project based and as described below:
Main Project: rehabilitation and re-integration
a. support in this project is offered by providing housing, personal- and health care, education and basic training classes on reading and writing for those adults who did not have a chance to learn these basics.
Secondary Projects:
b. Extra help for all mentioned groups
c. Emergency help and prevention
d. Help in the form of day and night care
e. Agriculture, gardening and small cattle (farming)
Below please find a more extensive overview of these groups:
The Organization "Mutanyana Weru" can be split up into some more ore less separated groups:
a. By the end of 2010 a permanent group of adults (28) and children (56) were living in families in the region of Mocambiques capital Maputo. In the past they were housed in the Centre Mutanyana Weru. Now they are living in 8 brick houses and 10 huts (3-rooms). Of these brick houses, 3 were build by the organization, 3 were bought, 1 was rented and another one was donated. Where possible each of these units has its own garden, providing vegetables for private use. This is the main group of people who will be guided from rehabilitation into re-intergration to normal social life.
b. The Aids-group usually consists of about 25 persons. By the end of 2010 there were 24 people: 21 women and 3 children. The number of HIV infected children in the group is unknown.
c. Emergency help and prevention: There are about 30 women in this group; many of them are unmarried or left alone by the father of their children. Their number of children is about 70-80. They live independant and get help to counter social problems and to prevent that their under-nourished children have to go to hospital again and again. In the past these children died often too early.
d. Day and night care for abandoned children or children who have been left at the Central Hospital of Maputo. Two women take care of 1 to 3 children, 24-hours per day! At an average of 11 months per year. In the past these children were the largest source of new residents in the former Centre. Now the Central Hospital continues to count on help from the Organisation Mutanyana Weru. It offers medical facilities and free medicines in return.
e. Agriculture and small cattle: The yield of the small gardens next to, or close to the houses, is for own use. But the Organization also possesses some large pieces of agricultural land at some distance away from the people, in the Marracuene-Bobolo area (about 30 km. away from Maputo). The yield of this land is for commercial use and the results should make the people independant of foreign help in the future. It will be an important factor on their way of becoming self-supporting.
Raising small cattle (like chickens, ducks,pigs and goats) can be of additional value. It also can contribute to some additional income. The Organization is supported by the founder of the Centre, Father André van Zon, with the help of his driver and an English couple. There also is a Mocambiquan women offering her support on the subject women emancipation. With the help of external specialists she offers every few months 3-days trainings on a variety of subjects like: raising children, hygiene, healt care, nourishing, how to deal with money, etc.
For the children priority one is education. In Octobre 2010 24 children attended basis education and 11 children secundary education. A blind women, as a result of an exploding landmine, is attending classes at the Maputo University. 4 adult women, who could read nor write, are attending classes on these basics.
The mutual agricultural fields serve to generate income and thus stimulates self-support. 2 persons with the neccesary skills have been hired on a permanent basis to guard the fields and to support the people of this project. In the harvest time additional people are hired on a short-time basis.
There is a very good relationship between the Organization Mutanyana Weru and the Central Hospital of Maputo. The majority of the participants of the rojects is coming from the hospital. After people are being dismissed from the hospital, the organization Mutanyana Weru offers the neccesary help and support. In these cases the Hospital Central de Maputo continues to offer all sorts of medical assistance. For instance, medicines are (usually) provided at no costs.