As I mentioned, I wanted to give more info about the celebration day. The community of Mbatwe is located near the airport in Beira (it is really odd to be in such a primitive area and see jets landing and taking off) There are about 250 families, 1800 people. Their conditions were deplorable - no clean water, no electricity, terrible housing, cholera, malaria, TB, and about 20% of their children died before they reached age 5.
The whole program lasted a bit over 3 years. In that time they learned how to take care of themselves in the areas of nutrition, sanitation, gardening, housing improvement, AIDS prevention, literacy and more. CFL Field Officers and local leaders visited the families every two weeks and taught them skills, motivated them, and set goals for improvement, but it was up to the people to do it for themselves.
The results have been remarkable. There are no cases of cholera, malaria has been greatly reduced, and the death rate of kids under 5 has dropped form 20% to 6.3%. Also, since the program began, not one woman has died in childbirth. Miraculous.
The pictures below consist of several groups performing at the celebration. The groups include the "Children's Club" the kids participating in Stay Alive (the AIDS prevention program) and the people who passed the literacy courses. One of my favorite parts was shaking the hands and congratulating the people who learned how to read - most of them older people who thought they would never have the chance.
There are also pics of CFL employees doing a skit about using the bicycle ambulance to take someone to the hospital, a skit about health, and a skit about family gardens.
And of course there were speeches. The community leaders, government officials, and I all had a chance to congratulate the people on a job well done.
After the speeches, the families who achieved a certain percentage of their goals received awards that included chairs, bags of cement, sheet metal for their roofs, etc.
Finally, to finish the evening, a giant sheet was draped between two trees, and a computer and projector were hooked up to a generator, and everyone watched a slideshow of the past three years. It was touching to see how far they have come, and bittersweet as well. Mbatwe was our first community - a sort of prototype for the program that is now in full swing with 11,ooo people. We will miss them, but have great faith that they will succeed long-term.
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