Kuwangisana
2023 Programs
Hospital Bed Project
Hospital beds were needed after a huge project to enlarge the Health Centre in Kapasseni village was completed. A recycling project was started to collect old thrown out beds and fix them up by welding, sanding and painting them. New mattresses were purchased and waterproof covers were sewn. The beds were donated to health centres in need.
The Scholarship program continues with 2 students graduating nurses this year. There are also some agriculture students.
Kuwangisana is continuing its plans to add on to Sete Montania School. They plan to continue the work with Pregnant women, mothers and babies who are HIV positive or in need of monitoring.
There was a devastating cyclone in March 2023. Kuwangisana became a refuge and helped feed over 1000 families every day for weeks until they could help them relocate. Food is in short supply but Kuwangisana is trying to teach about good nutrition and the health benefits.
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"Nzeru Za A Mai"
The main goal for this project is to mobilize women in the community of Sena ,Mozambique to combat mal-nutrition and poverty by starting a moringa farm and packaging business to provide a highly nutritious food supplement powder to the most vulnerable population including children, pregnant and breast feeding mothers and people with health risks like HIV AIDS.
The Kuwangisana Organization's goal is to empower and support marginalized and underserved populations to access
health and education services and advocate for women and children's rights. The project will use a comprehensive approach that is woven through community outreach initiatives, focusing on appropriate health education for all groups(women, children, youth, men) and the promotion of gender equality and awareness of the rights of women and girls. People will get information about rights to equality, safety, health and education services. Through workshops and classes, the topics will empower self advocacy to express their own voices, know their rights, their options and make choices.
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Previous Projects
The goal of the Kuwangisana's "Building Better Lives" Project was to prevent new HIV infections and provide quality care to PLWHA and children orphaned or made vulnerable by AIDS in under served, rural communities. The project had three major program areas:
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Prevention Education
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Care and support for orphans and vulnerable children
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Home-based care for critically ill bedridden people living with HIV and AIDS including referrals for comprehensive HIV related clinical services (including TB)
The project identified orphans and vulnerable children and home-based care clients with the help of local community leaders, government, church congregations, extended family, community volunteers, infected and affected families, other clients and the local hospitals. The Ministry of Health's referral system helps to determine the necessary level of intervention. Clients whose health improves to the point where they were weaned from intensive care and support are approached to volunteer to visit current bedridden clients. Stigma reduction and community buy-in resulted from this cycle of community involvement. The project combined clinical, social, psychosocial and spiritual care to meet the needs of the project beneficiaries.
Since the 2012 completion of the large grant from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Kuwangisana has been struggling to keep the programs active with the support of the Caia Connection, with grants from Family Health International 360 and from Positive Action for Children Fund. The World Food Program had been playing a major role in supporting our clients with food, but now have withdrawn services in 2014. It has been a difficult challenge to provide much-needed food for our school programs and HIV/AIDS clients.
Kuwangisana 2021
In 2020 The Caia Connection was able to provide emergency support for the orphan and vulnerable children programs focusing on food, and family support kits. Volunteer staff from Kuwangisana distributed food and books while children were not able to go to school. Scholarship students in Post Secondary programs continued online as much as possible.
The scholarship students have returned to studies in 2021. The library and the traditional music program have resumed and the students at Sete Montania are now able to go back to school with masks and social distancing.
In 2021 Kuwangisana is between grants and has no major funders at the moment. They are working at renewing smaller grants that pay for food for the preschools and Sete Montania and pays some wages for teaching assistants. They are also working with the government on a small program that provides support to teenage mothers and caregivers. They will continue to look for larger grants to continue the work with people in need. The Caia Connection is assisting these programs by providing emergency food and continuing its support of the library and traditional music programs.
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"Strengthening Lives" describes the vision of this organization to combine health and education programs to secure the future of women, children and youth. Kuwangisana has already been working towards strengthening maternal health services to women, new borns and children and will continue to increase these services to families in more areas of rural Mozambique through a Positive Action For Children grant for 2016-2019. To support pregnant HIV+ women from remote areas, Family Care houses need to be established close to hospitals to provide shelter pre and post delivery. An environment of mutual support and facilitated education regarding self and infant care will be established. This will help address the fundamental reluctance of women to access hospital care. Follow up of new borns and young children is also very important so monitoring their progress up to age 5 is in this plan. Kuwangisana will continue to work to empower local communities to increase their participation in the right to education and health services.
"Learning For Life" describes the vision of this organization to improve education programs to secure the future of the many vulnerable children and youth in this area of rural Mozambique.. Kuwangisana began providing special education classes in 2008 for orphans and vulnerable children who often suffer from traumatic experiences leaving them unable to cope in a regular school setting. A primary school called Seta Montania was built in the township of Sena with donations from the Caia Connection in 2012 to meet the growing need of children who were orphaned or had a special circumstance that left them alone and not attending school. This school is a model for other rural communities and has been a critical part of integrating these children into public schools and society.
A grant from ELMA will provide some funding for Seta Montania school to provide teachers for orphans and vulnerable children from preschool to Grade 3.
The "Hope And A Future" project started in 2011 with expansion of services to Caia and six other rural areas. The goal of this 3 year project was to provide life saving care and treatment and to avert new infections among women of reproductive age and their children by increasing comprehensive services for HIV-positive pregnant women and their infants and by increasing sexual and reproductive health services to HIV-positive women and their partners.
2014 began the third year of this grant. We focused on reducing early childhood and maternal death by increasing the involvement of male partners in the ante and pre-natal process, avoiding home deliveries and prevention of vertical transmission. The activities were carried out by the activists, the supervisor nurse, midwives and the drama groups in Caia and Chemba district.