International Women’s Day may well be over for another year, but we can still celebrate the achievements of strong women every single day.
With nothing but each other for comfort, Alice Mangane and her family were forced to sleep with only trees for shelter when her father and older brother died in mining accidents five years ago. Despite being just 22, Alice was suddenly left head of her household and took on the burden of looking after her five siblings and mother in Moamba, Mozambique.
"My father was our main provider but when he died, we relied on our older brother’s income. Antonio was a miner too, but five years later he also tragically died from a head injury at work, leaving us to look after his children. I was angry. I felt sad. I had no choice but to become an adult because I needed to help my mother make a living," she said.
Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world meaning families like Alice's, desperate to survive, take dangerous mining jobs in neighbouring countries. There, Mozambique’s men risk frequent workplace accidents and TB infection from co-workers. The country also has the 5th highest number of people living with HIV in the world, and men who have unprotected sex away from home frequently infect their partners with HIV when they return.
When miners die or become too sick to work, their wives or daughters lose their regular income. Suddenly the family breadwinners, these women must financially support their entire family despite a lack of access to education and employment, and up against an inheritance law that doesn’t favour women, which means that female widows and orphans are often driven out of their homes and recieve no inheritance at all from their deceased husband or father.
However, with help from the VSO backed Phoning Out Poverty and AIDS (or POPA) initiative, incredibly stong ladies in Mozambique are rising to the challenge and bringing girl bosses to South East Africa. A partnership between mobile phone provider Mcel and VSO volunteers, the initiative empowers widows, orphans and carers by providing small grants and teaching vital business skills and medical treatments, so that the women can afford meals, health care and education for their children.
POPA has helped Alice expand her vegetable and charcoal businesses. Now a mother of two, Alice can afford to educate her and her late brother's children. Plus, Alice can also pay for her own education. Finishing work at 1pm, Alice works extremely hard and heads to campus for 5pm to study Administration and Management of Education, so that she can push her business understanding even further.
"I set up a small stall selling tomatoes, cauliflowers and onions. It gave me about 200 meticals [£3.80] a day, but it wasn’t enough to provide for everyone. I needed to make a change. In 2012, AMIMO, an organisation which supports migrant miners and their families, were running income generating workshops backed by VSO. I signed up for their programme as I believed I could be successful with the right training. It’s helped me so much and motivated me to move on and think big. It’s taught me how to run my business and I’ve also benefited from a small start-up loan... It’s turned me into a successful business woman. I’m proud that I can help my family. I feel great and I hope I will have a brilliant future," Alice added.
Like hundreds of women across Mozambique, Alice's determination and unwavering perseverance means that she can look forward to a brighter future. She is living proof that, given the chance and the tools, women can run businesses and households as well as any man can.