Albertina's Journey to Resilience Through Cash Transfer
By António Massipa
Albertina Joaquim Napia, 34, is a divorced mother of four children who lived in dire straits following her divorce. Albertina struggled to provide for her children. However, things changed when she benefited from a package of cash transfers under the Austrian Development Agency (ADA)-funded project, which provided monetary assistance to 1,000 vulnerable people to improve their living conditions and help them build resilience to shocks.
Albertina is one the people who received cash transfers and invested in her small income generation activities. She shifted from selling banana, which used to generate insignificant income for her family, to food products and charcoal business.
“When my husband left, my world was torn apart. I was devastated. He left me with four children and no support at all. I didn’t know what to do. But a relative of mine lent me a small amount of money for me to start selling bananas. Indeed, I started doing so, but the profit from selling bananas was barely enough to buy food for us to have decent meals. Life was very hard on us,” Albertina says.
“However, things changed when a project came, and I received MZN1500 (≈ EUR24) four times and decided to invest in food products and a charcoal business. I used the first round of cash transfer to buy food. But with the second round, I thought it would be wise to invest the money, not just buy food for my children. So, I bought food products and charcoal and started selling. Now life is much better. The days when we struggled with food belong to the past. We now manage to have two to three meals a day,” she adds.
The ADA-funded project has a duration of 18 months and is implemented by World Vision Mozambique in partnership with Provincial Health Services and the provincial Health Department, with a total cost of EUR 1 million. It aimed to contribute to the Government of Mozambique’s efforts to strengthen the national Health System to reduce the incidence and spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases and the related impact on vulnerable communities and families in Nampula province, in the north of the country.
The project consisted of three outcomes, more specifically (1) increased capacity of local social services and infrastructures to address specific needs of vulnerable groups, (2) strengthened public health facilities’ preparedness and response mechanisms to contain the incidence and spread of COVID-19 and other pandemics, and (3) strengthened Health and Social systems to foster equitable access to health and hygiene services for vulnerable groups, especially women and girls—with this last including social protection cash transfers.