Published: November 18, 2021

November has not even come to an end yet – for LeMuSiCa, however, it has already been a special month so far: On November 3 and 4, LeMuSiCa conducted the first learning visits funded by HORIZONT3000’s KNOW-HOW3000 programme. First, we visited the SOS Children’s Village in Chimoio. On the second day, we got the chance to get to know the organisation Girl Child Rights and their hotline “Child Speaks”. Read on to find out more about the two productive learning visits:

On the first day, 12 LeMuSiCa staff members, mainly women who care for and advise the children and women in the LeMuSiCa transit centre, but also staff members of the kindergartens, the coordinator and the programme manager in the girls’ area, set out together with me to visit the SOS Children’s Village in Chimoio. A large bus was hired and the trip was full of excitement and anticipation for this exchange of experiences with the SOS Children’s Village for which the topic was agreed upon in advance: “Sheltering, counselling and psychosocial support for orphaned and vulnerable children”.

I was particularly happy to organise this visit, as the founder of the SOS Children’s Villages, Hermann Gmeiner, was my compatriot and I had previously visited SOS Children’s Villages in Vienna, Carinthia and Maputo.

When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by the management team and then immediately guided through the whole area. Several houses were visited and the LeMuSiCa staff had the opportunity to ask many questions and meet mothers and children. After the tour, a nice place was prepared under big shady trees where we sat down with 10 colleagues from SOS and introduced each other’s work, presented good practices and talked about various difficulties and challenges. We found that in our work we had many things in common, so we shared ideas and solutions for all kinds of situations. It was such a lively exchange that the originally planned time for the visit could not be kept. Under these shady trees, the exchange of experiences was concluded by singing, praying and finally eating together.

Full of new impressions and happy about the successful exchange we then set off on our return journey after having invited SOS to come visit the LeMuSiCa centre too.

After a few days, I asked for feedback from the participants, which was extremely positive. One of the mothers said that it was a dream that came true, because for a long time she and her colleagues had wanted to visit a childcare centre in order to exchange experiences and gain new ideas.

On the second day, 11 LeMuSiCa staff members visited the organisation Girl Child Rights, in particular the staff of the hotline “Child speaks”.

After a short tour of the premises, the LeMuSiCa team – this time made up of social workers and counsellors accompanied by the coordinator, the programme managers and myself – was welcomed by the entire hotline team in the meeting room. A presentation about the work of the hotline with current figures and statistics was held and afterwards we had a lively conversation about the working methods, successes and difficulties. Similiarities, in particular the difficulty of corresponding with certain agencies, were quickly revealed. LeMuSiCa also presented working methods, good practices and mentioned the most common challenges in everyday work. A lively exchange on the issue „reporting violence and counselling girls on sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence” took place and was facilitated by the coordinator of LeMuSiCa Achia Camal.

After fruitful discussion, we planned the next step for joint action and the hotline team was invited for a return visit at LeMuSiCa.

During both visits, the organisations were able to exchange information material, benefit from individual discussions and get to know many people working in the same area. Therefore, a good foundation for future cooperation was created.