Juan Sevilla en Mozambique Proyecto humanitario deportivo de Juan Sevilla en Maputo (Mozambique)

2.- About Children’s Town

Children’s Town in Maputo started in 1991, and it has since then been a home and a school for street children, orphans and other children with difficulties. Today the school has 100 boarding students and 800 day students. Most of the students come from the poor neighbourhood of Bairro da Costa do Sol.
There are various reasons why the children become students at Children’s Town in Maputo. Frequent reasons are:

- the parents have separated, and there is no place for the child in the new family;

- the parents are too poor to take care of the child;

- one or both of the parents have died from AIDS, malaria, or tuberculosis;

- the child has been abandoned and then placed at an orphanage.

The initiative to send children to Children’s Town is taken by The Ministry of Women and Social Welfare, by the orphanages, by NGOs working in the area, or by the family itself.
At Children’s Town in Maputo the children learn academic skills and get themselves a good education. They learn a great number of practical skills needed in everyday life by taking practical responsibilities in the school. They learn to live a disciplined, collective life, where they learn to solve social problems among themselves or within their groups at the school. They take part in community work, and they learn vocational skills as a stepping stone to their future working life.
Academically the students are generally behind their age level when they arrive due to the problems they have encountered. They have been occupied with surviving, or lived in families with frequent conflicts, and have not been able to obtain much schooling.

When the children start school at the Children’s Town, they have to catch up or even start from scratch. They do this with the help of their teachers and Development Instructors. The time in the classroom is often not enough, so it is part of the evening programme that the student can participate in a Math, English or Portuguese club. The students have their individual strengths and weaknesses, and they learn over time to make their own study plan. All the curriculum materials are available for the students, they don’t have to wait, but can go ahead as soon as the plan is agreed with the teacher.

The school program offers academic education, professional education and a good environment with lots of extra curriculum activities to its students. The school has classes from the 1st grade to the 7th grade. The 6th and 7th grade curriculum is important because it shapes the future life of the student after school. The curriculum is designed to develop cultural values and give the student practical social experience. After the normal academic lessons the 6th and 7th grades does the following curriculum: Sculpture I, Sculpture II, Sewing, Painting, Ceramics, Metal Work and Secretarial Skills.

There is a kindergarten school for children aged 4 to5 years. The program works with the ministry of Education and the Children’s Town curriculum is in line with the ministry’s standards. The students are taught academic lessons in the morning and in the afternoon they engage in extra curricula activities such as sport, art and theatre. The children also learn basic life skills like cleaning, cooking and personal hygiene.

In general the girls face bigger problems in the studies than the boys. This stems from the fact that their upbringing and surroundings have not expected and encouraged them to be educated. The teachers and the Development Instructors therefore find different ways of motivating and encouraging the girls to be active in the studies. They help the girls to organise themselves in the best possible way in the classroom, and to set-up special evening programmes including subjects like Health, Hygiene, HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse and girls’ rights. They challenge the girls to speak their mind.
The students do catch up academically. The school’s atmosphere of the good comradeship encourages the students to do so. Their academic progress in combination with all the practical responsibilities and social beloning is the foundation for their personal progress.

The boarding school life
The students are responsible for cleaning and maintaining the school, and from this they learn both practical and organisational skills. They join the sports and cultural programme at the school, and they learn over time to be organisers and active participants in the sports and cultural events. They participate in and organise games, play in the school band, take part in traditional or modern dancing, train in the school choir, and at times invite the community to join.
Every Wednesday the students meet in the students’ council. Here problems are discussed and solved. Behaviour is discussed and corrected. Plans for the coming week and for the weekend are discussed and decided upon.
There are 4 types of weekends at Children’s Town Maputo:
1) Building Weekend, where the school’s furniture, equipment, indoor and outdoor areas are maintained and beautified.
2) Sports weekend
3) Culture weekend, where visitors are invited and entertained, the students perform with dance, music, art exhibition or in other ways
4) Weekend with visits to families, and for those who have no families another programme.
During the weekends the students learn many social and practical skills, build friendships, and learn to organise events for others and for themselves. All these skills are needed to grow up and be productive and socially minded, and the students benefit from the skills for the rest of their lives.

The students and their families
When students have left their home because of conflicts with the family, the teachers try to clear up the problems and disagreements and pave the way for reuniting with the family.
At the moment app. 30% of the students are with their families every month. The rest of the students either have no family or cannot be reunited with it.