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S/ S/ OZAMBIQUE AND THE MOZAMBIQUE INSTITUTE History of the Mozambinue Institute 1. -The Mozambique Institute had its beginnings as an idea in colonial Mlozambique in 1961. The late president of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), Dr. Eduardo Mondlane, returned with his wife to his countr y whered'they spent several months before going back to his work at the United Nations. He wanted to see if conditions had changed for the better in his homeland, for he had grown up in the colonial structuie. He hoped against-hope that the Portuguese had bent under international pressure and begun to ease their oppressive .colonial rure. But there was no change: the crushing poverty, the fear that stood out in sweat on the faces of the -Africans, the arrogance of the Portuguese demanding his "cafezinho'l- "n.the street cafes, and the lingering hope in the eyes of the young people as they visited Niondlanels house to talk ibout how they could contknue in school. Education. There lay their -hope and for the time being, there was little that could be done to help. 2. In 1962, after the formation of FREL!h40 when the KMIondlanels knew they would be residing in Tanganyika, Jnet Viondlane made a request I to the Ford Foundation of New York to give a grant to-build a boarding house in Dar es Salaam where young Mvozam-bican refugees could live while they attended local secondary sch-ols, The Foundation gave the grant, and with it enough funds to run the pr-cg_-, amme for the first year.: It was a good building built for 50 studc-'s. But immediately there were problems. (tur Rlozambican young pooplc came from an educational system which has four years of primary school and seven years of: . V. - -~ -.-~ .- - secondary school. Yet they wre to enter a system-ih which there were eight years of primary school and four years of secondary school. %A In addition, the background of what they knew was different. Our young people had learned Portuguese, mathematics, and the history and geography of Portugal. The Tanganyikah system at that time was predominantly British. Our students spoke Portuguese; the Tanganyikans were taught in English. And to finish off an already difficult situation, even with the studeis our students had been able to gain, the schools from which they came were often inferior and there was a wide educational gap to cover. 3. There appeared only one solution to our problem: to make a secondary school of our own w.ich would follow a Mozambican curriculum and which, though teaching English as a subject, would use Portuguese as the medium of instruction. \</e worked hard on the building up of the secondary school, adding a new level year by year, until last year was begun the ninth year. Most of our teachers have been expatriates trained in their fields, coming to us from all over the world- Swedish, Indian, American, English, Czech, Gernan, whiL e cs'bi~ i, and of course, black Miozambicans. The duties of the teachers at the secondary school were not only to teach, but to help in the development of a whole new secondary - and primary school curriculum for schools among refugees and for use in Free Mozambique where there are now 20,000 children in primary school. There was no alternative but to make a whole new educational system, for our children have never been taught about their own country or about Africa--only about Portugal. Vie used every possible help open to us end have thus developed a school programme to meet international requirements as well as to meet the needs of a child who is growing up in a liberation struggle, the aim of which is to build a free nation in which he will take the responsibility of government. 4. In 1970 the secondary school will open at Bagamoyo, and all primary school classes which operated in that camp (45 miles outside Dar es Salaam) this year will be transferred to the childrenIs camp at 7 A 1 4 5 0' j lPage 3 Tunduru in Southern Tanzania. The reason for this shift of location is one which is linked to progress. Beginning in 1971, the establishment of a'secondary school in Free Mozambique will be a necessity. Since conditions within Mozambique are those of a rural nature in which provision of conveniences such as electricity are impossible, we must -establish a pilot school in which we can carry on secondary education in a situation approximating that of our country. In this way we hope to work out an adequate course of study set within "bush" conditions, minimizing the number of surprises that will face us as we settle into Mozambique. 5. But we were speaking of the Mozambique Institute as it was a few years ago-.. No sooner were we launched in the secondary programme, than we knev it was necdssary to work in the field of primary school education. To many young people came with the hope of entering secondary school, butwith so poor an educational background that was impossible. Also there were many young children who had not yetc ompla-- prinnary sco!-ol-what were they to do? Our first primary school was established at Bagamoyo. The second school was established at the Rutamba settlement camp of the United Nations High Commission for iefugees, The third school was set up as a large children's camp at Tunduru, now the largest of the three primary schools. Before long, it was necessary to establish a network of primary schools in Free Mozambique. As was said previously, we now have 20,000 children in those schools and the number grows daily. But gvingthe children education wcs not enough. Their health needed caring for as well. 1.e set up clinics and dispensaries in the schools, and then trained nurses to menage them, and then sought aid abroad for cquip-rcnt and mcdicines. First. the programmes were taught in Tan.za-a, then in the liberated areas, too. As the needs of the refugees grew end the liberated zones becan-e stable end more prosperous, the Liberation Front asked us to help in the establishment of programmes for teaching adinistr'ators, primary school teachers, nurses, accelerated " - - - .- r 11 . ..--r-.--~ - -~- . -.... _-.- .-£ ... " "" h ". - U la.rrftay school courses for persons who were going to help in cobperatives, village industries,: etc. The Mozambique Institute helped to build oar first hospital and nurses I training school in Mtwara in Tanzania. 7. Last year, the Institute began to give aid in the area of social welfaredisabled persons, displaced persons and orphans. bn every society there are disabled persons, but in a war situation such as now exists in Mlozambique many men, women and children find themselves unableto do the normal work they would do if their bodies were whole. And the displaced people--persons and families who have had to flee the ruthless burning of their villages by the colonial Portuguese army and settle ,new in zones among other villages which are themselves new. The orphans? ;These are the lost children who, because they are sick or suffering from acute malnutrition, must be specially cared :for until we can make them well and strong again and then, perhaps, find a family with whom they may live. 8. Next year, on the site of the ivoza-mbique Institute in Dar es Salaam, will be established a publishing house which will print all the textbooks to be used in our schools. 9. In order to better understand the work of the Mkozambique Institute,- let us look more closely at two of the projects in which it has participated: the Tunduru Children's Camp and the hospital at Mtwa ia. 10. The story of the Tunduru Childrenis Camp begins with the launching of the armed struggle of the Liberation Front in eastern Nyassa Province in late 1955. This norLh-western province, unlike Cabo Delgado in the north-east whore the wor had bogun in 1964, is a land ill-suited for protection from Pnortuguese bombing. The terrain, though excellent for agriculture with its flat plains and flowing streams, has no forests and few bushes in which the populction can hide from the enemy coming from the skies. The pqoplo faced unimagined difficulties. -,e -~ - - - - i I 4 - .. *1 ( L Quickly learning the ferocity of the bombing, when planes were sighted the first impulse was to flee. The unhappy result of this terror was that many children were abandoned, perhaps because the parents were away in the fields when the planes came, or perhaps because the children were away from the village. One of the Liberation Front fighters, disturbed by the plight of these children, began "collecting" them. In early 1966, he and some others walked out of Nyassa with children in their arms and children following behind--about twenty-five of them- and deposited them at the camp site in Tunduru. 11. It was then a bush with a few deserted houses. -and huts. It had once been a large farm but had been abandoned long before. The children stayed there in rlake-shift conditions, not well-clothed nor well-fed, but alive. Before long, other children found their way there, too, most of them coming in the same way from East Nyassa, or even West Ifyassa, but a few orphaned children coming from Cabo Delgado as well. Although Tunduru had been foreseen as a rehabilitation camp for persons wounded in war, the de facto presence of a growing number of children precluded any further development toward a rehabilitation centre, and it became referred to as the "children's camp".

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