Jesuit Entity in Mozambique to Launch Special Education Program for Displaced Children

The report further indicates that the JRS Mozambique “team also held regular meetings with internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host community leaders to check-in about how they were coping with the challenges and stressors of displacement as well as where JRS could accompany them in that process.”

In the February 27 report, the Acting Project Director for JRS Mozambique says that from the needs assessment, “it became evident that there was a need to provide temporary learning spaces and resources for children to attend school.”

To implement the initiative ahead of the launch of the early childhood education program in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province, Helder says that “our team is securing the bamboo walls, assembling desks, and installing a tank full of clean water.”

The JRS Mozambique official adds that the program that is to be realized among the country’s Maningane community is necessary because displacement situations mostly render children vulnerable depriving them of essential needs such as education.

The displaced children, Helder further says, “often experience and witness multiple human rights infractions including killings, family separation, kidnapping, child recruitment, gender-based violence.”

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He says that the early childhood education program and a multi-purpose community center that is to be realized in partnership with JRS/USA Greatest Needs Fund are part of JRS Mozambique efforts to address the challenges that children are facing amid violence in the Southern African nation.

“We were effectively starting from scratch. There are no schools or clinics here for people to use,” the Acting Project Director for JRS Mozambique is quoted as saying in the February 27 report, and adds, “JRS Mozambique has already recruited teachers for the new education center and, this week, they will register their students.”

Helder continues, “The Maningane host community and the community of those who are internally displaced (IDPs) are happy when they realize that JRS is there to help.”

“They see that we are here to stay, that we listen to them and respond to their concerns,” the JRS official further says.

According to the February 27 report, “JRS Mozambique is committed not only to accompanying displaced people and the host community but also to ensuring that individuals are provided with the necessary tools to become leaders and pave a path for their own community’s future.”