Elisabetta and Ilaria's account of their mission in Maputo
From 19 to 24 May, project manager Ilaria Graziano and project officer Elisabetta Gramatica are in Maputo to take part in the final seminar of the Coding Girls in Mozambique project and to meet partners, institutions and young people involved in the three projects running in the area: Coding Girls in Mozambique, Digital Embrace and ICT Employment Generation. This strategic mission serves to strengthen ties, share results and look to the future of educational and digital cooperation. We asked Elisabetta and Ilaria to share their experience day by day. Here is the third “page” of their travel diary [read also the first and second pages].
Day 4, Thursday 22 May
Second day of the seminar. We woke up full of energy, ready to face another intense day at the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University. There is one thing, however, that, as good Italians, we are really starting to miss after four days on the African continent: coffee. So, this morning, we treated ourselves to an Italian pocket coffee, which gave us the right energy to start the day.
At 9 o'clock sharp, the seminar began with the presentation of the results of the Coding Girls in Mozambique project by Samira from Cies, our faithful companion over the last year and a half in connecting Italy and Mozambique. The project has brought significant results to Mozambique: 66 courses and coding clubs, 1,360 beneficiaries, 12 online role modelling sessions with international representatives and another 18 with national representatives, 9 cultural exchanges between Italian and Mozambican Coding Girls, to name but a few.
The meeting continued with a particularly stimulating practical activity, led by João Gomes of Cies, who introduced a reflection on the importance of incubators and support for young start-ups in the process of development and market entry, before dividing us into three working groups, each with a goal and some questions to answer. Our group worked on identifying challenges and possible practical solutions for creating a network of incubators and mentors. It was exciting to see how, despite coming from different countries, contexts and experiences, we were able to be on the same wavelength, almost anticipating each other's thoughts. After sharing the results of the groups, we concluded with the usual almoço, a lunch of typical Mozambican specialities, made special by a sweet surprise: a Coding Girls cake!
In the afternoon, we immersed ourselves in the Feira de Artesanato, Flores e Gastronomia (Feima), a public park renovated by Spanish cooperation a few years ago, located in the most elegant part of Maputo. This is the beating heart of local craftsmanship: batik designs - a typical painting technique based on the distribution of boiling wax on defined parts of a silk or cotton cloth, which is then immersed in vats of vegetable dyes where the colour is fixed only in the parts not covered by the wax - depicting scenes of everyday African life, tempera paintings, wood carvings, earrings and ornamental objects of all kinds, all strictly handmade.
There is no luxury at Feima, but there is the soul of a city that tells its story through the hands of its artisans. It is a place overflowing with colour, creativity and life; a small world that smells of authenticity and beauty, where art and identity intertwine in the fabrics, shapes and smiles of those who create them.
See you tomorrow for a visit to the incubator of the Eduardo Mondlane University of Mozambique Information Centre (Ciuem) and a walking tour of the city of Maputo!
