Mozambique: Volunteer agricultural production feeds 4000 families in Mecuzi, Nhamatanda

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Mozambique: Volunteer agricultural production feeds 4000 families in Mecuzi, Nhamatanda

5:06 CAT | 08 Jan 2024

Image: RTP

Graça Lencastre is one of the young volunteers who are cultivating an area of 50 hectares in Nhamatanda, producing food for the most vulnerable groups in Sofala province, central Mozambique.

“We, as volunteers, produce to help our beneficiaries,” young farmer Graça Lencastre tells Lusa. She is one of dozens of young men and women cultivating an area in Mecuzi, just over 100 kilometres from Beira, the provincial capital.

The Tzu Chi charitable foundation volunteers come together in the early hours every day to cultivate the land, benefitting more than 4,000 families in the community.

“We are the hands and feet of those people who are unable to work, whether due to age or for other reasons,” Lencastre adds.

The group prioritises the planting of vegetables. “This year, we want to produce pigeon peas, as a way of improving our soil,” explained the 23-year-old agricultural technician, who left her home in the neighbouring province of Manica to join the foundation.

Another Tzu Chi volunteer, 23-year-old agrarian technician Fernando João volunteered to help the communities of Nhamatanda, among those worst affected by Cyclone Idai in 2019 – the district experiences the paradox between severe drought and devastating floods during rainy periods in Mozambique.

“This project changed, firstly, me and my family. It changed my way of thinking. But, above all, it changed my community and my district,” Fernando said.

In total, the group has a space of 200 hectares in Nhamatanda, made available by the president of the Tzu Chi foundation.

“The volunteers have very few possessions, but they still give their heart and soul to help others. I was moved and decided that, of the 620 hectares I have here in Nhamatanda, I should donate 200 to the foundation,” says Dino Foi, president of the foundation, which has several other community projects in the region.

This foundation’s support for the Nhamatanda district is part of efforts to rebuild after the passage of Idai including the construction of 23 schools and 4,000 houses for those affected by the cyclone.

The foundation’s support for Sofala is budgeted at US$108 million (€101 million), entirely provided by the organisation, which has been supporting the authorities in times of emergency in Mozambique since 2012.

Mozambique is severely affected by climate change in the world, cyclically facing floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs between October and April.

The 2018-2019 rainy season was one of the most severe in memory in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.

Source: Lusa