Portugal’s ambassador to Mozambique on Tuesday highlighted the triangular cooperation with Japan in work to improve the teaching conditions at Matibana Primary School in Nampula, where six classrooms and an incentive centre were handed over.
“Today we have the opportunity to have here a living, concrete testimony of this spirit.. that unites Portugal, Mozambique and Japan around a very concrete interest, which is to provide our girls and boys with a decent school,” said the ambassador, António Costa Moura, after the delivery of solar panels and the inauguration of the Girls’ School Progression Incentive Centre in Nampula, in northern Mozambique, financed from Portugal’s aid budget.
The ambassador stressed the need for a “deep and very serious commitment” to education in Mozambique, reiterating his intention to work with the local authorities to improve the situation in the country.
“We strongly believe that with the creation of this centre we will be able to strengthen the quality of learning and improve the conditions in which students study, allowing access to electricity from a renewable source, through the installation of solar panels,” he said.
Japan’s embassy in Mozambique provided $92,190 (€84,815) for the construction of six classrooms in Matibana, in projects implemented by Helpo, a non-governmental development organisation based in Portugal.
“We are very pleased to have been able to realise this triangular cooperation here in Mozambique,” said the Japanese ambassador, Keiji Hamada. “We are very pleased that through this project we have managed to improve teaching conditions for students and teachers.”
Helpo’s coordinator in Mozambique, Carlos Almeida, thanked both Japan and Portugal for their contribution: “We’ve managed to do a beautiful thing called triangular cooperation, in which three countries are collaborating, Japan, Mozambique and Portugal, and we’re very happy about that.”
Matibana Primary School teaches classes from the first to the ninth grade and, with Helpo’s support in classrooms, the number of pupils has risen from 540 to 1,264.
The NGO has already built a total of 119 pre-school, primary and secondary classrooms in Mozambique, 85 of which are in Nampula, and has provided 2,070 desks and 1,286 bicycles in Nampula and Cabo Delgado.
Lusa
