Invisible Children: Mozambique: BRAVO! starts also in the maternity wards of Matola and Manga Chingussura

BRAVO! activists in Manga Chingussura

Sensitization in Matola

BRAVO! extends the work of sensitization and the registration of new born in two more provinces of the Country: Maputo and Sofala. The collaboration with the maternity ward of the city of Nampula, active since 2014, has shown how the collaboration between Health and Civil Status is crucial. Almost all the children of the area pass in the hospitals and the Health Centers, some coming for the childbirth, some for the postnatal visit, some other for vaccinations and else. In recent months the BRAVO! Program met thousands of mothers, making them aware of the importance to register children immediately after the birth and informing them about the procedures to obtain the birth certificate for their children.

Sensitization in Manga Chingussura

Now BRAVO! began the work to raise awareness of families and registration of newborns in two important Health Centers near Maputo, in Matola, and in a suburb of Beira, in Manga Chingussura. These two new maternity wards serve heavily populated neighborhoods and are daily visited by more than a thousand mothers with their children. This will make easier and clearer to register the children and obtain the birth certificate.

Training of BRAVO! activists

In January BRAVO! created two new groups of activists dedicated to the sensitization and registration in the two maternities. The activists received an intensive training on the benefits arising from the possession of the birth certificate and problems that can result for a child without it, on administrative procedures for the civil registration, on the preservation of the documents and the computerization of the data, on strengthening of the communication and disclosure skills

Training of BRAVO! activists

The activists will be able to answer as effectively and clearly as possible to all the questions of the people they meet in the maternity wards and they will help them to complete the procedures of the newborns registration.

Birth registration in Manga Chingussura

The BRAVO! activities in the two new maternity wards started immediately after the training, and the activists have already met many mothers. The beginning of the activities in the two maternity wards has been received very positively by the hospitals, which are already experiencing an intense collaboration with the DREAM program of the Community of Sant’Egidio for the fighting against AIDS.

All the above has been made possible thanks to the funding from the Minister of Economic and Development Cooperation (BMZ) and the collaboration of Kindermissionswerk.