Vida
Viva in Mozambique
Goal of VidaViva Mozambique is:
- To improve quality of work life through enabling and strengthening
workers and their unions in their efforts for concrete workplace
intervention for better working conditions
- To strengthen and develop democratic and participative union
practices (culture of involvement) and organising structures at
the shop floor and pressure for change
- To strengthen cooperation between different union federations
of Mozambique and the independent unions
- To enable a south-south exchange on organising and intervention
practices between unions in Mozambique and Brazil
Both union federations OTM and CONSILMO, independent unions of
teachers and independent union of journalists.
In July 2006 with support of Brazilian members of VidaViva and
the international coordinator of the project a Mozambique platform
was formed to organise a health project in Mozambique. The task
of this platform is:
- to plan, develop and implement a joint health and organising
project;
- to realise education at the shop floor;
- to realise participative action research;
- to evaluate and accompany the process.
The platform is actually involving 25 participants from the federations
of OTM, CONSILMO and ‘the independent journalist and teachers
union’. 21 of the participants are local union leaders, who
are training workers and 4 persons are representants of the different
union federations. During 2006 the platform has met several times
to share and accompany the pilot phase of implementation.
During the platform meeting participants have been trained by the
Brazilian activists in mapping, a tool for participative
action research. The platform meeting was followed by a
pilot-phase of during the second half of 2006 and early 2007. Participants
were supposed to implement mapping at different work places around
Maputo.
In July 2007 a second platform meeting with Brazilian participation
has been organised to evaluate the pilot-phase and plan future steps.
They decided to expand the project beyond Maputo.
In the first half of 2007 all participating unions had organised
joint meetings in the Central region of Mozambique,
including union representatives of the provinces of Tete, Manica,
Sofala and Zambezia. They had presented the project goals, the tool
of participative action research to those union leaders. The participants
of these provinces also evaluated health as a most relevant issue
for the region and the target group, and also evaluated the project
tools of the VIDAVIVA project as highly adequate. They decided that
they want to be part of the project and formed a possible implementation
structure. In each of the 4 provinces there will be chosen 8 union
representative (2 of each union federation), who may in future act
as local trainers to implement the project. These 32 representatives
will meet regionally (4 provinces) and locally (provinces) to implement
and monitor the process. The unions will look for themselves for
resources to assure implementation.
To make this expansion possible and to intensify the implementation
in the district of Maputo the platform developed following strategies:
- Capacity training of 32 local trainers in the Centre region
and of additional 40 trainers in the district of Maputo early
2008
- Mapping of workplaces and the existence of union committees
in the Maputo region to map strength, needs and possibilities
of the unions
- Implementation of participative action research within the union
leadership of the unions to raise the understanding and support
within the unions
- Discuss and include participative action research in the ongoing
official planning of union activities
- Production of information material about the project and already
achieved results in Mozambique
- Elaboration of principles and work procedures of the platform
and the nucleus
Till July 2008 the unions further made a concrete planning to
implement participative action research in 18 specific
workplaces in the Maputo district (Radio, TV, Schools,
Food, Public Transport, Security, Railway, Hotel, Aluminium, Cement
and Bank).
After the platform meeting in July 2007, the Brazilian and German
activists stayed at the national leadership meeting of the unions.
Together with members of the platform they presented and informed
about the project. The union leaders officially supported the project,
which will help the platform to be better supported in future. Hopefully
this will help to make implementation efforts in future more effective
and the use of union resources easier.
Finally a first life story of workers could be
realised successfully, which includes workers from the hotel and
water industry.
Till now, main activities have been the training and implementation
of mapping, as tool of participative action research and the realisation
of a Mozambique life story of workers for expositions. For late
2007 a folder to present the project and a second bulletin about
already achieved results have been planned.
In future there may be more elements of the project: sector exchanges,
seminars on specific issues etc.
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