Mozambique
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Celina, 18, receives food and help from our partner in order to look after her parents, brother, sister and son.
Over two thirds of Mozambique's people live below the poverty line. Half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.
Although it's essentially an agricultural country, Mozambique's climate is dry with a low annual rainfall. There aren't many water irrigation systems across the country, and farmers depend heavily on rain, but droughts and floods have devastated their land in recent years. This, together with a government that doesn’t put people first, has led to hunger and misery for millions of people.
HIV infection among adults has steadily increased over the years, especially in the central and southern regions of the country. Women are disproportionately affected: four times as many young women between the ages of 20 and 24 live with HIV as men.
'Land grabbing' is creating new conflicts in Mozambique. small scale farmers across the country are under threat because big multinational companies have been allocated huge areas of land to develop for commercial agriculture, irrigation schemes and mining. Communities should be protected by the Mozambican Land Law, but it is not actively enforced by the government; in fact they're approving the concessions.
CAFOD is working with Church partners in Mozambique.
To deal with extreme weather we're:
- responding to the devastating recent floods in the south of the country by providing food, clean water, medical supplies and shelter and building toilets
- registering and protecting unaccompanied children and young people
- where high flood risks are high, helping partners prepare so they can react when floods do arrive.
To tackle the HIV & AIDS epidemic we're:
- providing home-based care and counselling for people living with the virus
- helping people live healthy lives by accessing essential medicines and growing their own food
- raising awareness through community debates and events
- supporting orphans and vulnerable children to complete their education.
To combat the land grabs we're:
- raising communities’ awareness of citizen's rights, and
- supporting people to register their land and understand the Mozambican Land Law and its impacts.
- in particular empowering more women to participate in identifying land rights violations, as they tend to be more affected.
![London launch of the IF campaign [Tim Whitby for Getty Images]](/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/1.-banners-logos-artwork/if-assets/uk-if-launch/68681-1-eng-GB/UK-IF-launch_layout-small.jpg "London launch of the IF campaign [Tim Whitby for Getty Images]")
