Menstruating girls can’t cross the streets in rural communities in central Mozambique, so “they can’t go to school either,” says Américo Boaze, senior manager of the education program at Gorongosa National Park, which is trying to counter the freak.
The Clube da Rapariga is one of the emblematic initiatives of the Gorongosa National Park to “breaking taboos that are not scientifically proven”describes Lusa.
It operates in schools in the “buffer zone”, the area surrounding the park, and today there are 93 after-school clubs, with 40 girls in each, run by trained promoters.
The list of human rights violations includes forced marriages of children and pregnancies so young that childbirth leads to death.
This “basic violation of the elementary rights of girls” is in the crosshairs of the park, which only believes in the conservation of nature “if there is human development” of the populations of that same region.
One of the objectives is to put an end to illiteracy that affects close to half of the population and “the girl, the woman, cannot be excluded from development,” emphasizes Américo.
The girl will get to know her body, she will know how to take care of menstrual hygiene”, she will move away from risky behaviors and “above all, she will learn to negotiate with her parents, that is, to tell them ‘someday I will get married’. , but not right now,'” she describes.
Américo Boaze acknowledges that it will be difficult to change the habits and customs of the communities, but the last hope is that the girls who now attend the clubs are already, themselves, “defending the rights of their daughters when one day they become mothers.”
In five years, “There have already been marriages averted, girls going back to school and fewer dropouts” from classeshe says in a balancing act.
Each club received a book titled “Gorongosa Model Women”, featuring 22 Mozambican girls and women, some from the local communities, working in different areas of the park, with the aim of inspiring young women to role model through continue.
“For me it’s something unique, I never imagined it could be in a book, with my photography,” says Janado Cher, 27, a communication assistant at the park who compiled the testimonies and is also part of the publication. .
Each one “tells what their challenges were” to show that “With or without money, it is possible to train and become a woman who can inspire others.”
“I was also a woman from the community, I went through a battle and suffering and I think this will inspire other girls,” she adds, at a time when she is already supporting one of the students of a club that she wants to continue. your model
Another of the girls in a club is 13-year-old Lucinda, who lives on the slopes of the Serra da Gorongosa, in a remote area without light, water or sanitation, where basic daily tasks require extra effort.
She is not married yet and won’t be soon, says her mother, Vaida Fulanguene, in the Chigorongosi language.
“She’s not married yet and she’ll have to continue studying until the park decides she should go,” Vaida tells Lusa, sitting on a mat on the edge of the mud and cane house.
Vaida was a volunteer in the first experiences of planting coffee, which today is a new source of income for the communities and helps to reforest the mountains.
It was there that she heard about the Clube das Girls and saw a new opportunity in life for her daughter, just as coffee had been for her.
“We got married when we were little,” she says, happy that her daughter’s life could be different.
The hope of the Gorongosa National Park social team is that the willpower of Vaida and other mothers resist the weight of customs and uses.
Source: Observadora
