2023 Project Story: Mozambique Maputo

In 2019, Bill and Melinda Gates wrote a letter about some of the biggest surprises they have seen in Africa, many of which HumanitarianXP has also discovered:

“The world keeps getting older, but Africa stays (nearly) the same age. In every part of the world, people are living longer. As more children survive to adulthood, women are having fewer kids than ever before… except in Africa. The median age there is just 18. In North America, it is 35. If sub-Saharan Africa commits to investing in its young people, the region could double its share of the global labor force by 2050, unlocking a better life for hundreds of millions of people.”

This summer, HumanitarianXP Builders will be constructing classrooms at the School of Muhalaze, which houses almost 7000 students from grade 1-7, with classes as large as 80. This school is the only option for most of the community, and every day close to 2,000 children ages six to fourteen attend classes there. The lack of classrooms cause students to be more prone to sickness and disease because of sitting out in the cold and rain. Instead of having indoor classrooms, they prop up blackboards under trees and try to have their lessons outside. As a result of sitting on the ground in the sand, their books and clothes are ruined, and they end up not being able to use materials to learn. When it rains, they have no other option but to go home, and their education is stilted as a result. 

HXP Builders will construct classrooms that will ensure that 700 of those children can go to school year round, even during monsoon season. This is just the beginning—education changes everything.