Water at her doorstep

“Many suffered in the village of Buzi because of the floods,” Rosa explains, “The big suffering was the lack of water.”

Rosa Antonio is a 33-year-old single mother of six children. Before the flooding in Buzi, Mozambique, she ran a small farm to sell produce and to provide food for her children.

Rosa’s home was destroyed during Cyclone Eloise in February 2021, and she has lived in the Macurungo resettlement camp ever since. This is the second time that Rosa has fled her home due to floods. In 2019, she escaped the floods brought on by Cyclone Idai. In just two years, she has suffered twice the consequences and destruction left by two major cyclones, losing her livelihood in the devastation.

When she first moved to the camp, Rosa and her children had to walk 500 metres to collect water that was “improper and dirty, taken from homemade wells.”

Now she is happy to get potable water from taps with the water system recently constructed by Oxfam, with support from the Humanitarian Coalition and the Government of Canada. Rosa no longer has to walk long distances, wait in a queue and carry the water back to her home.

She has also benefited from the distribution of hygiene kits, dignity kits, blankets, household utensils and food.

Rosa says, “now we have been helped with the installation of this water supply system, and now we have water at our doorstep.”

In fact, Rosa and her six children have never lived closer to water. “I have water close on my home,” she says. “I’m very happy.”