Companies come together to help Mozambique and send 5,000 "solidarity backpacks"

Wednesday 17, April 2019

EDP, Águas de Portugal Group and Lusíadas Saúde have joined the SIC Esperança campaign and collected essential goods that will now be shipped to Beira province.

EDP, Águas de Portugal and Lusíadas Saúde have joined SIC Esperança's 'Apoiar Moçambique' (Helping Mozambique) campaign and challenged their employees to prepare thousands of 'Hope Backpacks'. The workers of these companies and of Impresa Group have collected enough basic goods to fill 5,000 backpacks: rice, pasta, beans, tuna, condensed milk, a pan, a wooden spoon, soaps, and t-shirts.


EDP employees have collected 2100 'solidarity backpacks'; Águas de Portugal Group collected 1400; Lusíadas Saúde, 1000; and Impresa Group, which owns SIC Esperança, 500. 


These goods will now be sent to Dondo, Beira province, through Portuguese NGDO APOIAR (Portuguese Association for Helping Africa).
Created by SIC Esperança, the 'Helping Mozambique' campaign has also opened a bank account and a hotline. Donations from the Portuguese people amounted to almost €240,000, which will now be used to rebuild Mafarinha neighborhood in Dondo. 


SIC Esperança is in charge of monitoring the implementation of the project, which will benefit APOIAR's own projects. With these funds it will be possible to rebuild Mafarinha school, where 1500 children are enrolled. Hundreds of homes affected by the catastrophe will also be rebuilt.


The 'hope backpacks' were collected by companies earlier this month and will be shipped to Mozambique in the coming weeks so that many of the cyclone-affected families can have basic goods and return to their normal lives.