By Vikki Farrell | Managing Director
Dear all,
We are so grateful to each and everyone of you that supported our campaign to return to Mozambique. We are so happy to send this report detailing our very successful trip in July 2022. This trip was full of objectives and our small team of volunteers worked relentlessly in trying to achieve as much as possible in only one month. Please see below a short update on some of our objectives:
Gutsakisana is back!
The children's project we collaborate with in Tofo is back in action! The children returned, full of spirit and enthusiasm for their kids' club recommencing. Vanderful and Gutskisana put on a parade through the village announcing our return, the children even created a new theme tune... 'Gutsakisana is back, coming to make us happy!'
Manu Shapes Workshops
We arrived with material and tools for Manuel to begin engaging young people in shaping wooden surfboards once again. Thanks to Paulownia Italy, Stanley Tools Italia, Bessey Clamps, Burnett Wooden Surfboards and Makerspace Carinthia, Manuel now has a fully equipt workshop to make at least another 8 surfboards. Whilst we were there, we supported Manuel in beginning his workshops for young people in the community, we're so excited to see what they make over the coming months.
Vanderful Artisans
A new fundraising strategy for Vanderful is to showcase local Mozambican artisans and merchandise their products in exchange for donations. In collaboration with G-White an Italian clothing company and Waraia a Mozambican tailor, our organisation will be marketing this new venture very soon!
Vanderful Needs Assessment and Evaluation
This was an integral part of this journey whereby we returned to Tofo and implemented interviews within the community to hear individuals', businesses' and the young people's opinions and ideas on how our organisation can best serve them. This process was extremely eye-opening and our team are still evaluating the feedback and planning our next steps, more updates coming soon.
Vanderful Collaborations & Inspiration
Whilst we were in the country, we took a few opportunities to take 2 short detours! One was to Ponta do Ouro, a beach town south of Maputo to implement a Surf Wax Workshop with Lwandi Surf, a like minded organisation run by some inspiring individuals. We are very excited about collaborating with them further in the future. The other was to XaiXai, a town about 4 hours away from Tofo where we visited the incredible Khanimambo Project. This experience was awe inspiring and we are really excited about sharing more details about our visit to their community centre and permaculture programme very soon.
All in all, it was a busy, but a very successful trip. Thanks to all of your support and donations, we were able to send two of our volunteers to Mozambique to follow through with all of the above.
Please keep updated with our GlobalGiving page, as we start to plan the next phase of this project.
Thanks again for all your support and encouragement,
Best wishes,
The Vanderful / Seeds of Hope ODV Team
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