About Arco Iris, Zimpeto

The Arco Iris orphanage was started in 1994 by Heidi and Roland Baker, an American couple, who were moved by the plight of Mozambicans after the civil war.

The original centre was elsewhere (in Maputo), but the Government reclaimed the site and Arco Iris moved to its present site in Zimpeto. They also have other centres in Machava, Marracuene and Matola which are miniature versions of the main Zimpeto centre. The Iris Ministries churches are present in every province between Maputo and Pemba. The church is interdenominational and is totally funded by donations.

The orphanage is home to 350 boys and 50 girls. The school which was built by the Iris Ministries is open to local children as well as the children in the orphanage and the children of the employees of the centre. In total there are 700-800 children in the school. They follow the Mozambican curriculum and the teachers are Government employees. They have received some extra training from the missionaries and there is an active programme of ¡§professional development¡¨ held at the centre. There was one such training weekend coming up when we visited. The school caters for children between grades 1 and 7, including pre-school ages. For grades 8-12, the children need to travel into public schools in the city. Transport is provided by the centre. When they have finished their schooling, some older children go on to trade school. There is a homework programme after school to support them.

Children are referred to the orphanage by hospitals, social services and by walk-ins from people who have heard about the work of the orphanage. The children are not necessarily orphans as we may imagine. They may have one parent alive for instance. Their mother may have remarried after the death of their father and the boy does not get on with his new step father. This goes part of the way to explaining why there are many more boys than girls referred to the centre.

There are several dormitories segregated by age. The children from about the age of 9-11 are also segregated by sex. In the evenings there are activities for the children after dinner. The girls are looked after separately and do art and craft and sewing activities. There is a large soccer field and playground and climbing frames within the grounds. The children have recently planted trees to shield the soccer field from the road and to provide some shade. The dormitories are looked after by the long term foreign missionaries with help from Mozambican staff who live in the dormitories at night. There are 8 long-term missionaries who are American, Australian, Brazilian and British at the moment. The missionaries have their own living quarters on-site. They each have a day off per week.

Young adults who have finished school are trained in car maintenance or metalwork and some of them are taught to drive and take a driving test. There seems to be no definite age by which they must leave and there are young men of 21 there, who now work or volunteer at the centre themselves. We suggested that those who could work as gardeners or handymen could advertise via the Arco Iris staff in the Living in Maputo newsletter.

New projects at the centre include the building of a ¡§baby house¡¨ for babies under 6 months and the construction of a widows house for women who are left as widows and have no training to begin working and becoming self sufficient. There is a small health centre which one morning a week is open to the local population from the surrounding area.

If we decide to nominate Arco Iris as one of the ICM¡¦s charities for this year we will investigate what their tangible needs are.

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