My name is Paulo Agostinho Xavier, I am a young man of 19 years of age, born in the District of Palma and resident of Chiúre - Sede, Cabo Delgado province. As I write this, I am attending 12th grade at Kuphé Secondary School. 

I am going to talk about my life story, I need to make sure that I do not shed tears, my life story is very sad and complicated, I lived in Palma with my mother and my four (04) brothers and sisters, two (02) girls and two (02) boys, our father abandoned us when we were little, I was a child at the time and I did not know my father and I have never met him in my adult life. Our living conditions were not so easy, my mother did not have a conventional job, she only had a farm that guaranteed our survival and thanks to her I studied, she made sacrifices to buy notebooks and other school materials, my mother dreamed that I would study to be a nurse, to help my family and the community.

My mother never gave up on supporting me despite the difficulties we faced.  The years went by, and bad luck came knocking at the door, we ended up losing our mother, our uncle, our aunt, and our cousins, all in the same year.

It was very difficult to adapt to the new reality of life and to this day I struggle to accept that I have lost almost half my family, I will never forget, and it will never leave my mind because it marked and left a deep and unsalvageable wound.

My family sat down and decided that I should go and live in Chiúre with my grandmother who also does not work and lives in a house that was borrowed from an acquaintance of hers.

The house we live in, the one that grandmother borrowed, was destroyed in 2019 due to natural disaster (cyclone Kenneth), and the owner of the house asked us to rehabilitate it, we were not able to rehabilitate the house, so we have lived in the same conditions since 2019 because we have no other option.

When I arrived in Chiúre, I met my uncle who was an artisanal miner in Chiúre-Velho, to help with the expenses.  At that time, I thought it was the only way to solve my financial problems, I followed my uncle to Chiúre-Velho to also get involved in artisanal mining, the little I earned I used to continue with my studies.

When my family died, I stopped studying, because no one could pay for my studies, and I had no other way out, so I had to work as a miner to find the financial conditions to return to school. My brothers and I risked my life, one day the earth collapsed on me while I was inside the mine. Thanks to the rapid intervention of colleagues, I came out alive.

One day at school, I met a classmate who always helped me with school supplies (pen, notebook, copies, and brochures), she works as an agent of change at the Wiwanana Foundation, and she realized my suffering and sadness and one day we decided to have a sit-down so that we could each tell our story, she was moved by my sad story, tears fell from her eyes from so much emotion and sadness.

After the conversation, she told us that there was an opportunity to enroll in one of three courses: Bakery, Carpentry and Electricity Installation, the Wiwanana Foundation, through the Project SKILLS TO LIVE, at first I did not believe her actually, since it is very difficult in Mozambique, having an opportunity to train at zero cost felt too good to be true, but, as I was very interested in the electricity installation course, I signed up for it and thanks to God I studied and completed the course.

I also thank YOUNG AFRICA in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), through their project SKILLS TO LIVE, the creation of mobile workshops, particularly having implemented these courses here in Cabo Delgado and in particular in the district of Chiúre I am one of the first beneficiaries. Many young people in Chiúre become marginalized, become drunkards, drug addicts, sex sellers and many have already lost hope in their dreams since they have no guaranteed future, others are on the street robbing people. Hence I would like the project to continue in Chiúre, to train more young people who are presumed to be lost.

I am proof of this, a renewed young man with renewed hope, a former miner and now a professional electrician and installer, I can provide services and earn money to help my grandmother and buy my school materials. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

However, this is not enough because I know many people who depend on me a lot. I have my siblings depending on me day and night, looking at me as their pillar of hope, but I would also like to fulfil the dream of my mother, to become a nurse, and I would like to finish high school and complete the nursing course.

The prospects from here on in are to have my own company providing small services in Chiúre and to hire more young people within the company to give them hope for their future.

Thank you to YOUNG AFRICA and IOM. I am an electrician thanks to you, keep going, we want to develop our families and the communities of Chiúre.