Between the second half of 2022 and these first months of 2023, the pace has been frenetic in Mozambique: the Building with Music project, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, saw the closure of its first year of activity on May 17, with a balance that we can call positive. The first six months were used to create together with all the partners, including the Mozambican Ministry of Culture and Tourism, all the work flows for the next three years and now the activities are proceeding.

There was no shortage of unforeseen events, such as the cyclone that hit the provinces of Inhambane and Quelimane in February and March, two of the three of which will be at the center of our work in Mozambique in recent years. In particular, in the Provincial House of Culture in Quelimane, the roof was irreparably damaged, and a large investment will be needed to renovate it and allow the project activities related to training to be carried out inside the structure. Having met people on site with a great desire to do and who strongly believe in the project, gives us hope for the continuation of the activities and in the summer months the training will get into full swing: experts in cultural management, music therapists and builders of traditional musical instruments will arrive in Maputo and will begin to pass on their skills to the Mozambican technicians.

In parallel with this project, we continue to carry out all the others, such as Distance Support, which, in addition to the periodic delivery of food parcels, hygiene-sanitary products and school materials, also includes two other activities: school support and family education. Both of these activities are fundamental for the growth of children and young people, who often do not have adequate support either at school or at home, not so much due to carelessness, but rather due to very limited time and resources. The project as a whole is carried out by volunteers, both Mozambicans, who provide their services free of charge directly through AGAPE or with our partner associations (Machaka and A.V.I.M.A.S.), and by volunteers from the Civil Service program.

This year, there were eight organizations where Italian youth were able to carry out their volunteer work in contact with children, confirming how the association is increasingly well-known in the area and is gaining the trust of both other local associations and public institutions. Among these are the three organizations in which SAD is active, namely the Machaka Association, A.V.I.M.A.S. and the CRPS of Mahotas, but also Casa Esperança, the orphanage located in Katembe, just outside the center of Maputo, the Hlayiseka Association, which takes care of street children and at risk, two special schools that take care of disabled children and with whom we started working this year, and Projecto Utopia, a new reality in the Mafalala neighborhood, the same as the Machaka Association.

Precisely with the latter, in the past months our volunteers Alessandro, Beatrice, Elena, Sebastian and Simona have developed meetings together to raise awareness among children and young people on the topic of environmental education and the importance of recycling. Together with Caldino, the head of Projecto Utopia, with gloves and work tools, they involved the kids from the Mafalala neighborhood in collecting bottles and organic material. The bottles were cleaned and will be used to create a work of art (a giant turtle!), while the food scraps were combined with a bit of soil to create a compost bin.

The volunteers also explained to the older kids what composting is for and its uses and benefits, while the children were involved in artistic reuse activities. Now, the environmental education project is continuing with the experimentation of vertical gardens built with the largest plastic bottles.

Finally, in the first months of 2023, we had the pleasure of welcoming 2 volunteers who decided to have an experience in Mozambique for a short period: Lorenzo who spent a month with us (the story of his month in Maputo on page 11), and Francesca, a music therapist who with the Erasmus+ program had the opportunity to have a 4-month training experience working with the music therapists of the Entendarte project.