Who we are

Our 
mission

APOIAR - Associação Portuguesa de Apoio a África is a Portuguese NGO, born in March 1995, which promotes development projects in the areas of Nutrition, Health, Education and Training in Africa.


Our mission is to "educate for sustainable development and promote humanitarian aid, contributing to the breakdown of the absolute poverty cycle" and we have multiple projects implemented in Africa that reached 20,000 families, 10,000 young people and thousands of children.

In order to achieve our goals, APOIAR works closely with local partners. Since 2012, APOIAR has been focusing its efforts in Mozambique.

Our board

The members of our board are passionate about the cause and have a unique set of skills and experience to take our organization further.

    • Our team

    We like to make it happen. It move us the cause and work with meaning. We care deeply about what we do every day. We work with dedication and love because we know the responsibility that we have to reach more for those who need it the most. Such a noble cause deserves our best effort at all levels of the operation.

    PORTUGAL TEAM
    MOZAMBIQUE TEAM

    Our history

    In 1995, at the time of our first visit to Mozambique, we were asked, from all over the country, from Maputo to Pemba (Cabo Delgado), to focus our action on computer education. At that time, as Mozambique was one of the 5 poorest countries in the world, the request they made raised some questions... On the other hand, the opening of Mozambique to foreign investment, banking and other computerized institutions with its numerous agencies spread all over the country, gave us the strength to move forward with what was asked of us. In 9 years we have opened computer centers: Maputo, Xai-Xai, Manjacaze, Inhambane, Manica, Quelimane, Lichinga and Pemba, with co-financing from the European Commission and the Portuguese Cooperation Institute. We have trained about 120 trainers nationwide in an intensive 2-month regime, which in turn trained users, making centers not only self-sustaining, but also primarily profitable and capable of generating resources for support institutions in which they are located.

    With the concern of responding effectively to the needs felt by the people on the field, we have been developing other projects over the years.

    We went to Angola. In 2004, APOIAR went to work in Lobito to improve the facilities of the Bom Pastor Health Center that serves the Cabaia Neighborhood, a local with an extremely poor population. The Health Center served an average of 300 patients per day. Here we also developed a project of professional training - the cutting and sewing centre. At this time, a carpentry was also restored and equipped for the training of carpenters and the production of wooden parts.

    Between 2006 and 2007 two Centers of Computer Training were created in the Province of Benguela. One in the Diocese of Lobito and another in the Professional School of S. Paulo. In 2010 we provided specialized books to the legal library of the Catholic University of Lobito.

    In 2009 in Alto da Catumbela, a small village repopulated with war refugees from the interior of Angola who live on the threshold of absolute poverty, we opened the Alto da Catumbela Health Center, a project that had the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The Children's Kindergarten in this Village has been fully equipped by APOIAR allowing children to have access to higher quality education and a better space to play safely. The Franciscan Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Jesus were the partners in the field of these projects.

    In addition to the IT Centers project, we have strengthened our operations in Mozambique in other areas. We have installed libraries all over the country. The Books were an excellent support to Literacy and didactic CDs gave a very important support to the teachers who had for many years, a great difficulty of access to books. In 1997, at Xai-Xai, we built the Escolinha de André, together with the Dominican Sisters of Santa Catarina de Sena, which receives 250 disadvantaged children distributed from pre-primary to 5th grade and about 60 adults in literacy courses. During the floods of 2000, many families were displaced and at the request of the Dominican sisters we began a project of reconstruction and repair of existing houses and huts. By the end of 2008, 48 houses were built for the families that host the children of Escolinha do André in Xai-Xai. Knowing the importance of the water resources for the development of the population, in 2008 we proceeded to the opening of water holes in Xai-Xai and in Tete.

    We were pioneers in the development of programs of sponsoring children at a distance. We currently manage the distance sponsorship program in partnership with Fundação LVida. The first steps were taken in 1999 at André's School in Xai Xai. It is the godparents who allow children to have access to food and attend school. The management of the sponsorship project was given to the "A Little Gesture" Organization in the year 2008. In 2002, the Sponsorship project was extended to the children of the Mumemo orphanage. After 10 years of APOIAR cooperation, in 2012 the management of the sponsorship project was delivered to this local partner. Also in Mumemo, HIV screening was organized in partnership with the Franciscan Hospitaller Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. In 2009, 15,000 tests were performed and 1,365 patients were being treated. The initiative was promoted by the Mumemo Music and Dance Festival. Also in Mumemo, given the high rate of unemployment and lack of proper housing for families, APOIAR developed a training project in the construction of houses on raw land, meeting the needs of housing but above all promoting the training in traditional construction techniques and economic conditions. The trainees continue to build houses for the families of the neighborhood of Mumemo.

    In 2015, in Mandimba, Niassa, we started the project KUKULA - Mozambican school kitchens, a school feeding program that includes free distribution of two nutritious daily meals to regular students and is already present in 5 schools. In 2017 we launched in Sofala, at Escola da Mafarinha the same program, Project Kook4all. And in Dondo the first seed of the project MAYI - Academy of Maternal and Child Health & Nutrition that exists to improve the nutrition and health of pregnant women, mothers and their babies up to 2 years.

    School Kitchens
    In 2015, in Mandimba District, Niassa Province, we started the KUKULA Project - Mozambican school kitchens, a school feeding program that includes the free distribution of two nutritious daily meals to regular students. The project is implemented in 5 schools and covers an average of 1366 children per day (data from 2019). KUKULA contemplates the development of school gardens in order to optimize the food product acquisition model. We seek to promote more sustainable communities, reduce operating costs and facilitate food transport logistics.

    In Sofala, at the Mafarinha’s School was also implemented a school kitchen that covered 1496 students. In addition, in partnership with the Embassy of Japan and local government authorities, APOIAR built two classrooms, a school fence to protect the school and a warehouse to support the kitchen.

    Maternal and Child Health & Nutrition Training Academy - MAYI
    It is also in Sofala that it has been developed the project MAYI. MAYI (means “mother” in a Mozambican local dialect) is a Maternal and Child Health & Nutrition Training Academy, designed for low-income and marginalized pregnant women and mothers with babies up to 2 years of age. Due to limited access to comprehensive maternal healthcare, they are more likely to experience complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the baby's earliest times. MAYI works as an academy, a school for pregnant and recent mothers integrated in the local health center. Since 2017 MAYI has trained more than 500 participants.

    FOOD | EDUCATE = WIN
    More recently, in 2018, in Maputo, the project SUPPORT CHAMPIONS was launched, targeting the most vulnerable children and young people in Maputo neighborhoods. This project complements the training and values gained through sport with a mentoring program aimed at empowering a generation of talented young people with the power to act as change agents in their lives and their communities.

    March 2019 - The Idai Cyclone
    In March 2019, cyclone idai happened and triggered a massive disaster in Dondo. It directly affected APOIAR's operations and projects on site. Following this, a response was structured to address this calamity:

    • SUPPORT in Emergency: facilitate the distribution of immediate emergency aid to vulnerable communities in articulation with governmental, national and international humanitarian emergency specialist agencies; ensure the survival and safety of the most vulnerable people.

    • SUPPORT in reconstruction: strengthen the resilience of Dondo communities most affected by idai cyclone. This intervention takes place in rebuilding safer and more resilient homes and infrastructure with the community (with the support of SIC Esperança, Compal and individual donors), promoting food security through the implementation of school kitchens (with the support of Compal and individual donors) and the recovery of machambas (vegetable gardens) from families of rural communities (with support from 11 municipalities of the Tagus Intermunicipal Community), and health and nutrition promotion through daily monitoring of mothers and pregnant babies up to two years at the F.LVIDA Health Center.

    Our bylaws

    See HERE the APOIAR bylaws.

    Our sponsors

    All our sponsors are essential to the development of our programs and we are grateful to each one for their generous contributions.

    Sponsors in 2022

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