Vision, Mission and Outcome

Background

Part of the Oasis Global Family, Oasis Mozambique was founded in 2002, and is based in Beira, one of Mozambique’s largest cities. When founded Oasis Mozambique focused upon work with young people. In 2004 it started community development work in addition to its youth focus, they began running clean up days and building clean water points, the first of which opened in 2005. Also in 2005 research began in 3 schools about corruption and issues facing young people, this was built upon in 2006 when Oasis received credentials from the Ministry of Education allowing Oasis to deliver a program of ethic and moral education in schools. In the same year, Oasis began to actively train ‘kids’ club leaders a process which still continues to this day. In 2007 ‘Child protection’ and the ‘Able to Decide’ (focusing on HIV/Aids awareness and abstinence) projects began, both education children and trained up leaders.

Throughout Oasis Mozambique’s history the main focus of work is on partnering churches and communities to meet needs, in particular in the areas of community and child development.

Vision, mission and outcome

Our Vision

•Our vision is for community – a place where everyone is included, making a contribution and reaching their God-given potential.

Our Mission

•Oasis Mozambiquewalks alongside the poor and excluded, empowering people to find their voice, address injustice, and strengthen communities. Oasis Mozambique works in an integrated and comprehensive way.

Our Objectives for 2009-2012

•Churches equipped to influence beliefs, values and behaviour by promoting a biblical worldview and modelling integrity, trust, safety, mutual support, vibrancy, health, opportunity and effective leadership.

•Through engagement with the community, churches and other agencies, communities are empowered to address their own needs bringing about positive holistic transformation.

Governance

Oasis Mozambique is a Mozambican association nationally registered and has been working in Beira since 2002. Oasis started operating in the United Kingdom in 1985 and until now has created 5 interdependent organizations based in 10 countries around the world. The vision of Oasis Mozambique is to see people rich in faith, hope and love working together to transform the society. By working with churches, schools and other organizations and government; it seeks to impact children, young people and communities through: extra-curricular activities for children, community activities, making water points, leadership training for young people and moral and ethic education in schools.

According to the Mozambican Law, Oasis Mozambique is ruled by a General Assembly, Council Direction and Fiscal Direction. The role of these councils is financial supervision; organizational development and enable Oasis Mozambique becomes an effective and autonomous member of the Oasis Global family.

Oasis Board of Directors

Kevin Britts – Chairman of the board - Regional development co-coordinator of Oasis Sub-Saharan Africa

EuricoBuanaissa – Secretary of CDD

Joao Madeira – Food for the Hungry

One new member waiting for approval from the Assembly

Ruth Visick-Evans – Capacity Building Director for Oasis Global

Andy Matheson – International Director for Oasis Global

Organisational Structure

Oasis Structure

Our Communities

Oasis Mozambique works in the communities of Beira. Beira is one of the largest cities in Mozambique. It lies in the central region of the country in Sofala Province. It had an estimated population of 546,000 in 2006. It holds the regionally-significant Port of Beira which acts as a gateway for both the central interior portion of the country as well as the land-locked nations of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Beira was originally developed by the Portuguese Mozambique Company in the 19th century, and directly developed by the Portuguese colonial government from 1947 to 1975, when Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal.

After independence from Portugal in 1975, Mozambique was ravaged by a civil war from 1977 to 1992, with the Frelimo party (which controlled the government) being opposed by the rebels of Renamo. The country descended into near total chaos for several years as a result the famine, disease and poverty-stricken country collapsed.

Furthermore the 2000 and 2006 Mozambican floods devastated Beira and the surrounding region, leaving millions homeless and severely damaging the local economy.

Oasis Mozambique works with community’s right across Beira, but it focuses, in particular, upon the poorest regions, which are at high risk of the spread of diseases such as malaria, cholera and HIV/Aids, suffer from poverty, lack of healthcare and education. In these areas Oasis seeks to bring transformation and hope.

Our Approach

The effects of poverty have been keenly felt by much of Beira and Mozambique as a whole, it removes the freedom and choice each individual person has the right to and it has robbed people of the self esteem to believe they are worthwhile and have potential. Oasis longs to see transformation, for individuals, families and communities, to see everyone is included, making a contribution and reaching for their God given potential. We work to achieve our vision by walking alongside the poor and excluded, empowering people to find their voice, address injustice and strengthen communities.

Our aim is not to create a state of dependency upon our organisation but to empower the communities and Churches of Beira to take ownership of the change and the process that is required for change to take place. We do this by facilitating and training agents of change from the churches and communities who will empower and enable real and relevant transformation from inside the communities in which they live and work.

Oasis does this through a process in which we train, develop and mentor individuals and groups from organisations. Oasis facilitates general support and planning sessions with Churches and organisations, whilst also running specific training sessions on issues requested by members of the communities – these include training on organisational management and leadership, finances and fundraising, child development and protection, HIV/Aids, healthcare and human resources.

Our Projects

Community Health

Oasis runs a healthcare clinic in Manga, which provides free healthcare advice and medication for those who cannot afford to go to the hospital. We also provide a nutrition program for babies as part of the clinic in Manga providing milk and nutrients for undernourished children, in particular, the program was designed for Mothers with HIV who cannot breastfeed, it also educates the mothers on how to best care for their baby.

In partnership with local leaders and churches, we buildclean water taps in communities within Beira that do not have easy access to clean water. We recently opened a new tap in Munhava, providing clean water to over 600 people, thus reducing the need to walk long distances for clean water or the temptation to use unclean water, which then reduces the spread of water-borne diseases such as sickness, diarrhoea and cholera.

We run clean up days within communities of Beria – co-ordinating volunteers to collect the rubbish all over the communities (and for one day a year the whole of Beira) – thus helping combat the spread of disease and educating those involved about how to, and the benefits of disposing on your rubbish safely.This is an important way in which all members of a community can be involved in making a difference to the environment in which they live.

Business Development

Oasis runs skills training for women in poor areas of Beira, these women are often illiterate and without any skills for earning money, these women are usually dependant on their husbands for money (in Mozambique only 48.1% of adults were literate in 2005 and women are twice as likely to be illiterate as men[1]). Our team runs workshops to support local people in small business skills in culturally relevant ways. We run sessions on finance skills, popcorn making, crochet, and clothes making, enabling people to initiate small businesses and so improve their families’ livelihoods.Not only do these skills help them support their families, it builds their self- esteem and can enable them to earn enough money for them to be able to start attending school. Furthermore, Oasis provides training for starting small businesses, this helps individuals or groups learn how to establish a small business and run it in an efficient and effective manner.

Youth and Education

Oasis trains leaders from across Beira to run exciting and interactive weekly kids clubs, which teach about self esteem, hygiene and self care. The clubs also inspire the children to dream of a future they want and provide skills to help them achieve it. Furthermore, Oasis provides monthly training for all of the volunteer leaders who run these groups, these interactive and practical training sessions not only teach about what the clubs should cover in the up -coming month but they also teach volunteers how to work with children and empower them to lead the groups and develop as leaders themselves.

We are also re-launching a project which educates School, Churches and communities about corruption and providing methods by which corruption can be fought and challenged. In addition the project teaches about integrity and transparency. The project runs monthly workshops with teachers and students (separately) within schools and fortnightly workshops for community’s members in local churches. These workshops are very interactive and practical. They aim to challenge the pre-conceptions of society concerning corruption and providing practical solutions for how they can tackle corruption and resist it. In addition the workshops inspire and encourage participants to live lives of integrity – covering topics such as finances, social lives, work time and integrity of the body.

Community Mobilisation

Oasis does not want to try to solve people’s problems for them; we want to support and empower the people of Beira’s communities to be the answer to their own problems. As a result we will support them, providing training, coaching and practical help in the areas that THEY decide are issues that need tackling.

With this in mind, we have started running training sessions for Pastors and Community leaders on managing finances, human resources, organizational management, HIV and Aids, child development and child protection. As a result of this training those who attend are trained to be able to feed these skills back to the communities they come from.

In addition, we running specific organizational development sessions with individual churches and organisations, where we facilitate a discussion where they consider the strengths and weaknesses of their organisation and plan for how they can move forward, building on their strengths and tackling their weaknesses. This process acts as a real encouragement for the organisation and inspires and empowers them to move forwards with a clear sense of direction.

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