Be involved, help Matias’s Family

I am Telmo Calege, an employee of a Humanitarian Organization. I met the Matias family for about 6 months, in a situation where I wanted to get somewhere in the Mutarara district, Tete Province at Mozambique. At the time, he took me by bicycle taxi, the means used in the district for travel, as there are no cars available for that purpose. In the middle of the conversation, I proposed that he help me with a job, which he showed willingness to do, I was surprised and curious to meet him, as a stranger could not trust him, but I trusted him and that was it, I did not regret it. Today I look at him with confidence for anything, his friendliness is contagious, I look at him as a brother, friend, a close person, his humility makes him the best person I met in this place and he is always available to help .

One day by chance we talked about his life, he said that he always led a humble life, between odd jobs, farming on the field and currently doing bicycle taxi, he has his wife and 3 children, the whole family lives in a permanent accommodation center created by the government in the context of flooding, he was never involved in evil situations, he is a person who knows the Bible with his eyes closed, referring to Bible verses and chapters to comfort people. As a religious, he holds some positions in the church. He says that he once crossed paths with Brazilian missionaries, in the same situation in which we met, for his simplicity and affection for the church, he interested the missionaries to the point of arriving at his home to pray, the times they visited him they brought some goods such as clothes and bought him the bicycle he keeps today and uses it as a means of survival, he says that COVID 19 made it impossible for missionaries to bring the motorbike they had promised to boost the church's missions, but even so they sent 1000MZN the equivalent of 13.37 USD and chatted by video conference, which he thanks every day and expects the missionaries to visit when the pandemic subsides.

Due to his friendliness and friendship with everyone, I could never imagine what is going on in his house, we had talked about visiting him, but because of some transport issues and the rainy season we postponed the visit, but unfortunately, his third child 2 years old was hospitalized, the first thing I did was to find a day to visit the family at the hospital. To my surprise, the disease that the child suffers from is encephaly, a chronic and difficult to cure disease in Mozambican hospitals, the child was admitted to the Hospital with his eyes turned, his feet swollen and with a lack of appetite. This left me with some anguish for knowing that his humility does not allow him to treat the disease, I was sensitized. Because of this disease, psychological as well as physical development is being affected, the child does not sit and walk, try to say a few words but all of a suffering child.

I looked for nurses to understand what could be done in the hospital, the only information I got was that they can only control the child to prevent them from suffering from other opportunistic diseases, but they cannot do much in relation to the disease that most concerns the family, the treatment of the disease can only be done in specialized hospitals, in the Provinces of Zambezia or Beira in Mozambique and this needs a logistics to cover the travel, food and subsistence expenses of the patient and companions in case of travel to referral hospitals for treatment.

I decided to ask for support from everyone who can help the family to get the necessary amount for the treatment of the disease. Unfortunately at the district hospital level, they did not have the necessary referral, the other diseases that took him to the hospital were treated and he was discharged from the hospital, but his head continues to grow and can make the child incapable for the rest of his life

EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND WELL-BEING