Mozambique: Vodacom Foundation invests 90 mln meticais in Cyclone Idai response

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Mozambique: Vodacom Foundation invests 90 mln meticais in Cyclone Idai response

2:19 CAT | 24 Mar 2025

Photo: Conselho Executivo Provincial de Sofala

The Vodacom Foundation has invested 90 million meticais in its response to Cyclone Idai, including the reconstruction of the Guara Guara Secondary School, inaugurated on Friday in Búzi district by the governor of Sofala province, Lourenço Ferreira Bulha, and restoring to thousands of children the right to learn in a safe, comfortable and well-equipped environment.

The joint inauguration ceremony of the Guara Guara Secondary School and the simultaneous handover of the Guara Guara II Elementary School was attended by the governing body of the Vodacom Foundation, represented by its Chairman of the Board of Directors (PCA), Hermenegildo Gamito, the district government, represented by the administrator of Búzi district, João Saize Duarte, plus members of the local community, teachers and students.

Guara Guara Secondary School is among infrastructures destroyed by Cyclone Idai, which hit Sofala province in March, 2019. The Vodacom Foundation invested around one and a half million US dollars in its reconstruction, reinforcing its commitment to the development of Mozambique through education.

With the intervention of the Vodacom Foundation, Guara Guara Secondary School was rebuilt, gaining three new classrooms, a multipurpose block, a physics, chemistry and biology laboratory, a library, a computer room, toilets, a canteen, a multipurpose field and a fence, benefiting 1,768 students, 867 of whom female. In addition to this infrastructure, around 300 school desks were delivered as part of the inauguration.

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During his speech, Sofala governor Lourenço Bulha said that with the delivery and inauguration of these two schools, the district now has a total of five schools with 76 classrooms benefitting more than 15,000 students, from first to twelfth grade.

“In this context, we would like to appeal to the school community, and not only to the conservation, protection and maintenance of these schools and their furniture. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Vodacom Mozambique Foundation, a social responsibility institution of this national and international reference mobile phone company, which through the services it provides has made a great contribution to the development of our country and in particular the province of Sofala,” Governor Bulha said.

In turn, the CEO of the Vodacom Foundation, Hermenegildo Gamito, described the Guara-guara Secondary School as a symbol of hope and renewal. “This moment not only marks the reconstruction of the school, but also the reaffirmation of the Vodacom Foundation’s commitment to education and the future of Mozambique. We have invested one and a half million dollars here, around 90 million meticais, in the certainty that we are investing in the future of these students, their families and the entire country,” he said.

Gamito further acknowledged that the school reconstruction project was only possible thanks to the collaboration between the Vodacom Foundation, the Ministry of Education, the provincial authorities, the provincial government, cooperation partners and, above all, the local community.

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In December 2019, Mozambique faced one of the worst natural disasters in its recent history with the passage of Cyclone Idai, which devastated the central region of the country, leaving a trail of destruction and suffering. Around 3,400 classrooms were destroyed, compromising the education of many children. In light of this tragedy, the Vodacom Foundation, which has been working with the education sector in Mozambique for many years, saw an even greater responsibility to respond.

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