More than five years after Cyclone Idai devastated central Mozambique, thousands of students will start their school year in a brand-new facility built by a Buddhist NGO, reports Mozambican news agency AIM.
When the new school year begins at the end of January, the Mozambican arm of the Buddhist Tzu Chi Charity Foundation will hand over the newly completed Esturro Basic School. Budgeted at more than US$4.8 million, it is the largest primary school in the country, built as part of the larger Hope Project to support communities in Sofala Province impacted by Cyclone Idai.
Boasting 46 classrooms, the school can accommodate around 4,600 students in two shifts, a modern facility that represents a “qualitative leap” for students. “They will move from studying in precarious conditions to studying in dignified conditions,” Dino Foi, president of the Tzu Chi Charity Foundation Mozambique, told AIM. Students in the area have described studying under trees and in tents since the cyclone damaged their schools in 2019.
“[Esturro] is another effort by the foundation to reduce the challenges the country faces every year with the entry of new students into the national education system,” Foi said. The Mozambican Ministry of Education and Human Development estimates a deficit of around 32,000 classrooms for the coming school year, as more than 1.6 million new students join the system.
[See more: Mozambique launches new plan to reduce malnutrition]
At least 13 new educational institutions built as part of the Hope Project will be available to students at the start of the school year, bringing the total completed to 18. Tzu Chi plans to build five more in affected communities in Sofala. Tzu Chi Global Vice President Pi Yu Lin travelled to Mozambique to hand over 10 of those schools last September, alongside Foi, who said that all projects would be completed by 2027.
Lin also oversaw the handover of 840 homes in Guara-Guara Great Love Village on the trip, a portion of the 3,000 houses planned as part of the US$108 million Hope Project. Of that number, 1,678 have now been completed and handed over to families in the community.
The Hope Project was honoured at the Global Corporate Sustainability Awards (GCSA) last November, receiving a Best Practice Award for its comprehensive education empowerment programme. By building schools, alongside promoting literacy, offering vocational training, and integrating humanistic education, the project’s approach addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by impoverished communities.
