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Solidarity
Summer 2002
07/17/2002
Matola
(Mozambique)
Literacy and health education courses
at the nutritional center
"Como vai a saude" (How is your health), the text book for the health education course becomes also a text for literacy.
 Today in Matola it was raining and was very cold (we are in the midst of winter, but despite this, many children were waiting on time for the beginning of the School of Peace. We have gathered many during these weeks, well beyond 400. The school starts at 9:00 AM and each of the kids receives a personalized note-book. There are no desks, but children sit on mats and learn how to write and color, listening with great interest. Few of them know Portuguese and we utilize some translators for the local language: changane. Everything is new to them: how you hold a notebook, a pencil, how you may hold many colors in one hand, and also to have an older friend who speaks with you and teaches you many things. Then morning ends with a big party joined by the younger siblings. We sing, we dance and then a nutritious snack for everybody! Dances help also to warm up!
Because of the cold, in this period the pediatric visits to our clinic have increased. Many children suffer from bronchitis. However at times they suffer other illnesses, even very serious ones. Just yesterday, for example, we urgently took to the hospital Alberto S., a child suffering from meningitis.
 In the meantime the mothers continue their health education course. Each of them has her own book, written by the Community, "Como vai a saude" ("How is your health"). For many of them, it is the first book of their lives. When they look at it the desire of knowing more grows. The large and clear pictures help also those, like Safira, who could not learn how to read because of poverty and war. But the book, the school for children, and the new situation created with them, allow them to dream again. Safira and someone else find the courage to ask: "I would like to learn how to read and write." And here the course of health education becomes a literacy one.
Daria Colombrita e Mira Gianturco
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