Khanimambo Foundation

A window to the horizon

It is now 15 years old, having benefited more than 800 children and young people, between 2 and 23 years old.

Born in Portugal, Alexia Vieira was always aware of her natural colonial heritage and always felt on the wrong side of history. But if she couldn’t do anything about the “terrible past”, she decided to do something to change the present and also the future of other people and thus change hers as well.

At the age of 23, under the Swiss cooperation, she made a series of visits to several provinces in Mozambique. It was 2006, a year that remains in her memory due to the intense experiences with families who saw their vulnerability limit their horizons. A year later, she decided to give up the life that a degree in journalism in Spain could provide and settled in Gaza.

It wasn’t by chance. The lack of a project like the one she wanted to implement, the mines in South Africa that have always seduced young people in Gaza, and the growing number of premature marriages made her settle there.

“In life we always have two options, whether we look at ourselves or others.” And she chose to look at others and the Khanimambo Foundation put this hand to the chins of hundreds of children so that they would look to the sky and dream of a future that might not otherwise have been possible.

Khanimambo, which in English means “thank you”, is an integral project, ranging from education to health, including psychosocial support. But it does not want to replace school, but to serve as a complement to formal education, facilitating access to education for needy children and young people. And they arrive through specific projects such as “Swivanana”, which is for children’s education; “A Escolinha”, which are daily tutoring classes; “Xipfundo”, which offers scholarships for higher education or professional training, and a summer camp that comes under the name “Ungata”. And, as they say, these are not just ideas, they are facts that can also be presented in numbers. At the moment, through her effort, there are about 50 children in the nursery, about 200 in primary schools, close to a hundred in high schools, and close to 30 in vocational training or university.

But the first idea is to put the family at the centre of everything, a proof that they want to change from within, to put an end to the machismo that stifles dreams. “The place for the child to develop is in their family,” she points out.

Children are accompanied from nursery to college under the eyes of 46 attentive employees, some of whom have gone through Khanimambo, but there is also space for Mozambican and foreign volunteers who want to be this bridge to others.

It is now 15 years old, having benefited more than 800 children and young people, between 2 and 23 years old.

Khanimambo is Alexia thanking them for the opportunity they have given them to make a difference, to put themselves on the right side of history, thanking those who support her in this quest for difference; but it is also a gratitude that comes back to her from the 800 children and young people who have benefited and benefit from the project, but which also comes through the voice of their parents who are aware that the Khanimambo Foundation was the window to open their children’s horizons, allowing them to dream more than they were expected to.

Issue 70 Nov/Dec | Download.