Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has inaugurated the largest post-independence secondary school in Mozambique, according to reports.
A US$13 million project financed by the Tzu Chi Foundation, the new Mafambisse Secondary School stands on the location of a 20-classroom school destroyed by Cyclone Idai in 2019. The first stone was laid on 16 June 2022, the International Day of the African Child.
The new school occupies a 17,000 square metre site. Its 10 blocks house 58 classrooms, 18 changing rooms, three laboratories, two fully equipped computer rooms, a canteen and a library. It is expected to accommodate around 10,000 students from Dondo and neighbouring districts in Sofala Province.
[See more: El Niño is increasing the risk of extreme weather in Mozambique]
Mozambique is among the worst affected countries in the world by climate change, taking the unenviable top spot in 2019 in no small part because of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Idai. Over 2,700 classrooms were damaged or destroyed that year in Sofala alone, putting education at risk for hundreds of thousands of children.
The new school is designed to be weather-resilient. A spokesperson for the Tzu Chi Foundation, Dino Foi, said: “Our commitment is for this infrastructure to become a centre of excellence, where the community, parents, guardians, students and teachers come together to deliver a regular, but also humanitarian, education.”
An international non-profit organisation based in Taiwan, Tzu Chi has provided relief aid to 133 countries since its founding by Buddhist nun Cheng Yen in 1966.
