From a thank you to a school, from a school to a village, from a village to Associação Capulana.
Capulana is born from a thank you…
Capulana is born as a thank you to a country and its people: Mozambique. Its founding partners, a portuguese couple who lived their childhood and youth in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo city.
For everything they lived there and for all that this country gave them, they felt a big debt of gratitude with Mozambique and its people.
In this way, the dream to thank Mozambique, to contribute to its development, through the education and training of the Mozambican people. Initially, the realization of this dream went through the construction of a school, in the interior of Mozambique, where it was most needed.
In 2001, when the idea was more matured and the conditions were met, the only thing missing was the location where to build, having only one condition: it had to be a very needy area. It was when, the founding couple meets Father José Maria, founder and responsible of Casa do Gaiato de Maputo, which work covered a great area of southern Mozambique.
It was through Father José Maria that a poor population was identified. A population that lived farther south from Boane, already in the Namaacha district, very close to the Changalane River and the mountains that border with Swaziland, a place formerly intended to accommodate displaced persons from war and in 2000, had received populations that were victims of the floods of that year.
From a school to the birth of a village
The first steps were taken
The location had no infrastructures, so the first thing to do was to dig a hole to have water and install a manual pump. For everyone’s excitment, the quality of the water is excellent.
Also, in the year 2000, work begins on the construction of the school and also on a health center.
The school has 4 classrooms, 1 room for the teachers, an office for the Principal, one room for the school Secretary, a small storage room, and 2 latrines (one for boys and one for gilrs) with septical tanks.
The health center was divided in 3 rooms: one for the doctors office, one for treatments and the third one for training actions about health and food for mothers. As in the school, here to 2 latrines with septical tanks were built.
In addition to the school and the health center, and in order to offer good life conditions to the workers, 4 houses were built for the teachers, 2 houses for the nurses and latrines.
The basic infrastructures wouldn’t be complete without a kitchen and a dining room, which were – then – built as well. Considering that the preparation of the young generations should include a comprehensive training aimed at the creation of healthy living habits, – mens sana in corpore sano – a football field and a basketball court were also built.
Little by little, the population that lived scattered in a 4km radius, started gathering and getting closer to the place where the School and Health Center had appeared.
Ndivinduane Village
In 2003, the School and the Health Center were inaugurated. In that land, where three years before there was nothing, around 300 new families were already living around these new infrastructures.
In 3 years, as a result of wantinf to support the education and health in that region, a new village is born: Ndivinduane village.
From the first day of classes, to ensure student attendance, promote good nutrition, and contribute to a better learning for the students, a daily meal is given to every child in the school, from 1st to 7th grade.
Over the course of time, about 100 children, ages 2 to 5, accompanied their older siblings to school, and, under a tree, waited all morning until it was time to have lunch.
Faced with this reality, the next goal was to build a nursery and a day care, to accommodate and accompany these children and if possible provide them two meals a day, breakfast and lunch.
So, a day care, a nursery, a new kitchen and a dining room were built.
The opening of the day care happened on Jun 16, 2006, coinciding with the International African Child Day.
Gradually, other infrastructures were built in order to improve the living conditions of the village, such as 2 water deposits. One is to be used in the vegetable garden and the other for the day care and the health center.
As some children took more than an hour to walk to school, a shelter was built where they could live during the week, being accompanied by day care educators and receive three meals a day.
From a village to an Association
Thirteen years have passed and to assure the continuity of this work, on October 3, 2013, Capulana Association – Associação Humanitária para a Educação e Desenvolvimento, was born.
Like the Capulana, traditional African cloth, which accompanies Mozambicans from birth, as a cradle on their mothers’ backs, sheets, face cloths, table cloths, clothes, …, and often as a shroud in farewell.