Maputo — The 136 Mozambican university finalists involved in the third edition of the "Holidays Developing the Districts" project returned to Maputo this Wednesday.

They had been working in four provinces in the centre and north of the country, namely Tete, Zambezia, Nampula, and Cabo Delgado. They told AIM that, while they were made very welcome by the local governments, some people regarded these students as a threat to their job.

They said that, because of this situation, they faced some difficulties during the first few days, and were not given information they needed for their work. But after explanations and some work together, people in the districts came to understand that the finalists were there to learn further and to help solve some of the local problems, by using the knowledge acquired at university.

"People feel threatened with the arrival of highly trained technical staff. Some directors would feel threatened. They would not consider much the contribution that we could make towards the proper functioning of the institutions. We went there to get and to exchange experiences", said Elias Mula, a finalist of the Medicine course, who worked in Cabo Delgado.

"Despite this difficulty, we managed to do our work, and I believe that we have helped improve some of the things in the functioning of the districts", said Angelica Zucula, a historian, specializing in documentation, who worked in Chiure district, also in Cabo Delgado.

Describing his experience, Mula explained that another serious constraint was the poor state of the access roads, so that health workers risk seeing patients die during transfer from one health unit to another.

"The roads have to be improved, because in cases of emergency the situation becomes complicated, and patients may die. We had a case of a female patient who was in labour and who should have been transferred to a health centre. But she had to be returned to the health post because the road was in a very bad condition", said Mula.

Mula also thought work done to raise awareness about prevention of diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS was very poor. He said that awareness activities only took place in schools, and for a very short period.

"People living in remote areas are mostly illiterate and there is no awareness work being done in those communities", he said.

As for the shortage of schools, Zucula noted that all graduates from 10th grade in Chiure can study no further in the district, because there are no schools there offering 11th and 12th grades.

The Holidays Developing the Districts, an initiative of the Association of University Finalist Students, has started bearing some fruit. 63 young university graduates have been given employment in various districts, thanks to this initiative.