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 expanding an elementary school in Matola, Mozambique. 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. Recently, the community constructed more classrooms with sheet metal and tin to try and accommodate the high demands of students, but water leaks into these classrooms during the rainy season, and 200+ students still do not fit into these new spaces. Students are 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 two 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.