As an intern my responsibilities are related to fundraising and especially communication – an area that is quite new to me, but that has already given me exciting challenges and that I am eager to continue working on for the next few months. One of my tasks will be to produce a few short films that reflect IBIS’ work in Mozambique, and a few weeks ago I already got the chance to experiment with this, when I went to visit Centro Criança Feliz (“the Happy Child Centre”). Criança Feliz is a centre in the outskirts of Maputo – a very poor neighbourhood called Ferroviário das Mahotas – where children from the area can spend their free time before or after school and get a proper meal every day. IBIS supports this centre through a local organization.
Criança Feliz receives around 100 children every day who go there regularly to get help with their homework and participate in different activities, such as drama classes, sowing, using the library and learning IT or just playing with the adults or the other kids.
I spent a whole day there, talking to the people who work at the centre, taking pictures (practicing on IBIS’ new camera which has many, many more functions that what I am used to) and filming interviews with children of different ages. It was so uplifting – and exhausting – to be surrounded by really energetic and curious children.
You can tell that many of them have a rough life in different ways – some have poor health, others have lost their parents or are forced to live apart from them for different reasons, but children are children, and I have found that it takes more to take away their curiosity and positive view of life.
Many of the kids I interviewed told me that what they do best is playing with their friends. At first I thought this is a very modest answer – at least if you were hoping they would tell you how good they are at sports and that they want to become basketball stars in the future, or that with their talent with mathematics they dream of becoming an engineer – but thinking about it, it is definitely the best answer one could get from a group of children who otherwise have to grow up and take responsibilities way faster than other children.
You can tell that many of them have a rough life in different ways – some have poor health, others have lost their parents or are forced to live apart from them for different reasons, but children are children, and I have found that it takes more to take away their curiosity and positive view of life.
Many of the kids I interviewed told me that what they do best is playing with their friends. At first I thought this is a very modest answer – at least if you were hoping they would tell you how good they are at sports and that they want to become basketball stars in the future, or that with their talent with mathematics they dream of becoming an engineer – but thinking about it, it is definitely the best answer one could get from a group of children who otherwise have to grow up and take responsibilities way faster than other children.
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| Drama class |
Great pictures! Its great to be able to get a sneakpeek into what youre doing. Du er for sej!
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