Mozambique

Mozambique is a country on the south east coast of Africa. It has had a difficult 35 years since its independence from Portugal, shortly after its liberation it went through 15 years of intense civil war that finished in 1992. Since then it has been a multi-party democracy and is currently under the contested presidency of Armando Guebuza.

The IMF and the World Bank claim that Mozambique is an economic success story out of Africa, however other health organizations called this a paradox as child malnutrition and poverty is still one of the worst in the world. The free market system introduced into the country has seen the privatization of almost all the up and coming enterprises leaving the majority of the population in small scale agriculture with inadequate infrastructure and investments.

Project Overview

Over the last year a group of students have been working together with a swiss charity with the prospect of building a 210 meter footbridge across a swamp, joining up two sides of a village, in Mozambique. In July 2010 we went to the village to perform a site investigation and interview the locals. Now we have the data we are coming up with potential solutions to the problem, the best solution could possibly be something else other than a bridge so now we are analyzing all the solutions and will implement the one we think best, hopefully next summer. This crossing will change the lives of the local communities and will provide work for some of the villagers also. Our biggest challenge is to raise the money for the construction, we are organizing some fund raising events but need help from everyone.

The Place

Conguiana is a village on the coast of the Inhambane province in Mozambique. The province is only 300 kilometers north of the relatively well developed capital Maputo yet it is still a very rural area where clean water is not easy to find and clean sanitation systems* are very scarce. The reasons behind such slow development in the area are due to the very poor roads and transport systems between the capital and the pronvince.The village Conguiana is close(4 kM) to the fishing town of Tofu and is made up of about 750-800 people*. The village is split into two sides separated in the middle by the large swamp Phembana. On the one side there is the school, the clean water well and half of the villagers, on the other there is the ocean and the other half of the village.

Kids going to school in the morning,the school can be seen in the background, and collecting clean water for the day.

 

The Phembana swamp is a major part of their lives as it is very fertile land for growing vegetables. Every morning the swamp is crossed by hundreds of people either going to work at the market or to fish in the sea, to school or just to collect some clean water for the day. For the whole day the swamp is constantly crossed by evreyone, from young children to hard working women.

 

View Phembana Swamp in a larger map

Using google maps you can see a plan view of where the bridge spans. The satellite image is taken during the dry season so you can see the footpath made by sand bags. If you zoom out you can see that Congiuana is about 4 km north of Tofo, you can see from the map the distances they have to walk when the swamp becomes flooded and difficult to cross.

The Problem

The problem arises mainly during the rainy season, when for four months it rains hard and fills the already muddy swamp with water. The water rises to about 80 cm and although some of the men manage to wade across the 210 meters of muck the women carrying 20 litres of water on their head and the children going to school are forced to walk all the way to Tofu to cross the swamp, making a detour of about 4 km (each way).

Children carrying water to their homes and women crossing the swamp with food.

 

The situation has been like this forever and for the locals it is a perennial problem.
They have tried making walkways with sandbags but these just get washed away once the heavy rainfall comes. To make matters worse the Phembana swamp is connected further upstream to the town dump making the water a bath of bacteria and illnesses. Every day during these months the villagers are forced to walk an extra 12 Km because of the swamp. When the water starts to dry and the people start crossing it again they risk getting ill from the contaminated water.

 

Kids walking to school through the swamp in September. It's not even monsoon season yet, this is when the swamp is still at crossable levels for the kids. Here they can be seen going to school in the morning. This goes on for 5 months of the year.

The Plan So Far

In July 2010 we flew out to Maputo to meet up with our contact who is currently living in Conguiana. Jan has been living in Conguiana for four years now and is running his own charity in Switzerland*. He has already contribiuted greatly to the community with other projects such as a clinic, a water well and some new classrooms for the school. Jan has wanted to do this bridge for a long time but his charity is small and he's been too busy with other projects. Our plan is to work with him and build the crossing next summer.During our trip we completed an accurate site investigation. We collected soil samples that we brought back to England to test in the labs at our University(UCL), we are also running brainstorming sessions with professionals in the field to see what other possible solutions there may be to the problem and see if we can find a more economical and effective solution.

Collecting samples and doing a site survey of the area.

We also collected samples of the local materials which we also tested. These results will help us come up with the best and most economical design. However the main objective of the trip was to talk to the community and understand how the bridge will help them with their everyday activities and what ideas they had for the design. Everyone was very excited about the prospect of finally having a decent crossing across the swamp and were also gratefull about the jobs it would bring. During our stay we also spent the day at the school, meeting the teachers and children as it will be the kids that will mostly benfit from the project. We also made some formal interviews with the chief of the village, the director of the local school and the councils education minister. This last meeting was to be sure we would have the councils support with the project and that we wouldn't have trouble with the construction permits. We filmed these interviews and have edited them into the shorter video that can be found below.

How You Can Help

To help us succeed in this venture and make the lives of the people of Conguiana better we could always use your help. If you would like to make a donation please click on the links page where you will find an explanation of what to do. However if you are short for cash then any sort of contact or idea that you think could help us would also be much appreciated. You can email it to us on the address shown in the links page. If not just spreading the word to others and forwarding this link can also be of some help. Thank You