Overview
Since the 1970s, Mozambique’s agricultural output has steadily declined due to the failure of the State to run settler farms abandoned by the Portuguese after independence. In recent years the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has encouraged decentralization, but the skill level of Mozambican farmers is low and capacity building programs are needed. Most rural communities in developing countries routinely experience hunger and a high incidence of disease. Mozambique also has a high HIV/AIDS rate of almost 13%. World Hope International (WHI) enables people to grow more food and improve their health through HIV/AIDS prevention and rural development programs.

HIV/AIDS
Reach4Life (R4L) is WHI’s main HIV/AIDS prevention initiative in Mozambique. R4L is a 40-lesson youth discipleship tool which emphasizes purity and includes lessons on important life skills which help youth make good decisions. R4L staff train youth volunteers to facilitate R4L groups within middle and high schools. WHI conducted a small R4L pilot program in Mozambique in 2007 which took the R4L curriculum into one school and reached 30 students.

Rural Development
WHI’s water and sanitation, agriculture, and animal husbandry programs give people the tools to have better health and food security. Providing safe drinking water to a community reduces disease and death. A sealed well and pump keeps the water clean and a drilled well keeps providing water through the dry season when many hand dug wells dry up. WHI has drilled 23 wells in Mozambique, giving clean water to 16,100 people.

Oxen teams, plows and carts increase farm production. WHI sells these items on credit, interest free, and the revenue is invested back into the program to help more farmers. In Mozambique, four oxen teams and plows were “sold on credit” to farmer groups, allowing 36 farmers to increase their production.

Farm animals function as a bank account or an insurance policy for most small farmers in Mozambique. WHI is helping with animal multiplication programs where selected recipients must pass offspring on to the next families in line. In this way, people are held accountable and experience the joy of helping others needier than themselves. However, not every rural person knows how to raise animals and so WHI staff regularly conducts animal husbandry training. Through these efforts the animals’ reproduction rate is increasing, creating more valuable assets for the very poor.

Communities in Mozambique experienced the first passing-off of offspring in 2007. Originally, 90 cows and 9 bulls were distributed in new communities. In the 2nd round, 50 cows and 14 bulls were passed on to 15 other families. Now, 389 people benefit from owning animals. In addition, two courses in animal husbandry were held for 30 “village vets.”