Stories from Mozambique
In 2017, I traveled to the southern African country of Mozambique on assignment with the United Nations World Food Programme. In coordination with field staff and humanitarian photographer Guido Dingemans, we captured photo, audio, and raw video content to tell the stories of how rural Mozambican farmers averted catastrophe after a historic drought. This collection of stories privileges the voices of Mozambicans, and in particular, those Mozambicans directly impacted by hunger.
How Do You Stop a Slow-Motion Disaster?
Just over a year ago, the World Food Programme (WFP) sounded a global alarm about a troubling situation unfolding in southern Africa.
On that day, the region joined the ranks of some of the most troubled hunger hotspots in the world: Syria, Iraq, South Sudan. But this time, the suffering wasn’t due to conflict.
It was because of drought—the worst in more than three decades.
Faces of Hope: Fulgencia in Mozambique
Meet Fulgencia, a 5th grader at the Chinhancane Primary School in Mozambique. I met her one morning this spring as she made her way to school.
Follow Fulgencia on her journey from home to school—where she eats her first meal of the day. Along the way, learn how a devastating drought last year threatened families like hers— and how school meals from the World Food Programme (WFP) helped hundreds of students like Fulgencia return to the classroom after hunger and poverty pulled them out.
The Final Delivery
When Jeremias Ngwenya opened his eyes one morning last March in Mozambique, he remembers exactly how he felt.
He rested upon a soft, white mattress with a faded blue flower print, just underneath a teal-colored mosquito net. Small rays of sun burst through the uneven spaces in the walls of tethered reeds surrounding him.
“When I woke up, I had a lot of will,” he said. “I didn’t sleep yesterday. I hadn’t eaten anything. I had will to thank God. I had a desire to go get the food.”
Hacking Hunger Podcast: On the Brink in Mozambique (Part 1)
A year ago Mozambique was on the brink of disaster. Successive droughts meant the country’s farmers had almost nothing to harvest—or feed their families. In the first in a two-part series, host M.J. Altman takes you to the country’s urban streets and rural farms, introducing you to five Mozambicans who recount how their lives intertwined with a historic humanitarian crisis that left the U.N. World Food Programme with no choice but to sound the alarm.
Hacking Hunger Podcast: Averting Catastrophe in Mozambique (Part 2)
When a historic drought struck Mozambique last year, the nation’s farmers found themselves plunged into hunger. So how did the U.N. World Food Programme help pull the country back from the brink? On the last of a two-part series, host M.J. Altman shares five unique voices in Mozambique—a farmer, an aid worker, a teacher, a student and a father—who found themselves on the front lines of this slow-motion natural disaster and a massive and artfully timed humanitarian operation that saved millions of lives, including theirs.
go beyond the surface. | akosiewicz@gmail.com