According to Julio Nhaume, the chairperson of the Boane Nucelus of Kindlimuka, the project began in March 2006, with an initial funding of 50,000 meticais (about 2,000 US dollars) - in the shape, not of money, but of sewing machines, lace, thread and scissors.
Nhauma said that monthly production is 200 nets, only half the theoretical installed capacity of 400 nets. Most of the nets produced are purchased by the MOZAL Community Association, set up by the MOZAL aluminium smelter, which uses them in its anti- malaria programme. MOZAL also provided the initial funding for the Kindlimuka project.
"We're only producing at half our capacity because we haven't got enough money to buy more lace", said Nhauma.
Matters are made worse because six of the original eight sewing machines have broken down. Thus only two people are currently making the nets.
Nhauma says the association needs 20,000 dollars in order to buy 7,000 metres of lace, purchase two industrial sewing machines, and recruit more labour.
Kindlimuka has drawn up a project which it has sent to the Boane district government, in the hope that it can be funded out of the seven million meticais (280,000 dollars) that the government is allocating to each of Mozambique's 128 districts.
Kindlimuka sent a similar project last year to the Maputo Provincial Nucelus of the CNCS (National AIDS Council), but has so far received no reply.
Why should an association of people living with HIV/AIDS be concerned about malaria? Nhaume told AIM that the idea of producing the mosquito nets arose because Kindlimuka is well aware of the dangers that an HIV-positive person faces if he or she also becomes infected with malaria, given the weakened state of their immune systems.
The simplest, most cost-effective way of avoiding malaria is to sleep under a mosquito net.
The Boane Kindlimuka nucleus was set up in 2002, and now has 52 members.
SOURCE: AIM
