Mozambique. Bringing back to school 30 thousand children after cyclone Idai

Date 23.04.2019

Recent estimates from the Government of Mozambique indicate that 3,504 classrooms were either destroyed or damaged when Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique on March 15, disrupting the education of more than 335,000 girls and boys. After responding to the disaster with first aid intervention and focusing on family reunification, AVSI is now working on a long-term response to reopen 22 schools and send at least 30,000 children back to class.

Funded by Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies, the intervention will support children living in Beira and Nhamatanda, in the Sofala region, the most affected by the cyclone.

These schools are among the most affected infrastructures in this region. Some have been destroyed or badly damaged by the cyclone, many others were used for weeks as reception centers for displaced people. With our intervention, we want to restore the quality of education received by students in this region, despite the state of emergency.

Martina Zavagli, country representative AVSI Mozambique

As part of the project, AVSI will:

  • Rebuild and renovate 22 elementary schools (6 in Beira and 16 in the Nhamatanda District).
  • Offer specialized training to 174 education personnel to ensure children have the psychosocial support they need to resume their lives and deal with the trauma of seeing family members die, losing their homes in the floods or being displaced, and living in dangerous and unsafe conditions in temporary shelters.
  • Create 22 community centers to support the most vulnerable children; those with special needs or that became orphans after the cyclone.
  • Distribute more than 750,000 school kits, books, and sport equipments.

AVSI Mozambique continues to provide support to those affected by the cyclone, especially children that need to be reunited with families or find a new place to live, and distributing food and other items in one of the camps in the São Pedro region.

​Soon, AVSI will also distribute kits with household utensils (water cans, detergents, soaps, pans, plates, glasses, cutlery, dried, towels) and tools necessary for the management of temporary shelters (hammers, nails, metal sheets, ropes).