Southern Africa Affiliates
Regional Overview
In a region ranging from forest and grassland to desert, mountains, and coast, Southern Africa has a vast array of cultures, languages, and heritage. Yet, in the midst of such grandeur and diversity, HIV/AIDS decimates the whole of Southern Africa with the highest infection and death rates in the world.
Partners Worldwide walks alongside people in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia to strengthen businesses and create jobs, yet all partnerships reflect the reality of HIV/AIDS. Each partnership utilizes an economic component that helps entrepreneurs and businesspeople leverage their gifts and strengths in order to reduce rates of HIV/AIDS through tools such as mentoring relationships, business training, and a sustainable business approach to overcome this epidemic.
Mozambique - AfricaWorks
Maputo
The difference a job makes
MOZAMBIQUE --- Partners Worldwide and AfricaWorks are bringing subsistence farmers and other small business owners throughout Southern Africa into small scale commercial operations—equipping people to bring home a sustainable income to overcome poverty within their families and communities.
With no success finding work in his town, 31-year-old Neto Cossa joined AfricaWorks to be trained in how to run his own chicken production business. Since launching the business, he has completed eight poultryproduction cycles, producing over 8,000 chickens in just two years!
“We’re putting some of our profits into savings,” says Neto, “something which was never possible before.” As a husband and father, his income continues to improve the livelihood of his family. This year, they built a new brick home where they feel safe to raise their children.
His wife Judite is convinced that business training was God’s answer to their prayers. “It was difficult for us to earn a living before the business,” she says. “We were unemployed and neither of us had an opportunity to go to school. Now, our lives are improving through our own poultry business!”
By training people like Neto to own and operate a business, Partners Worldwide and AfricaWorks equipped more than 5,240 people this year to support their own families with a sustainable income. Through that income, people also care for orphans, vulnerable children, or extended family and friends living with HIV/AIDS, innovatively bringing about economic and spiritual transformation as they make lasting advancement in the fight against global poverty. This year, these farms and businesses also created 408 other new jobs in some of Mozambique’s most vulnerable communities.
Right now, Neto’s plan to overcome poverty begins by raising their children in a safe brick home. With the help of Partners Worldwide and AfricaWorks, women and men are providing a sustainable income for their families—and hope for their communities.
