Santos Uqueio is 17 years-old and lives in Manjangue, in Chokwé, with an aunt. He is an orphan and has 3 siblings, who live in Maputo. Santos comes from a very deprived family, and in 2014 the Vincentian Sisters, during one of the visits to the Community, saw a boy with a “wonderful heart” and many difficulties and ended up by “fostering” him and including Santos in the UPG Portugal Sponsoring program.

Santos is attending the 8th grade at Santa Luísa de Marillac school, he walks to school every day, always with a smile on his face! Despite the distance between the school and his house, for Santos “the distance does not matter, the most important thing is to be able to study”. In 2017, ALG gave him the first Mozambike, which eventually broke down, but this year he received another. This bicycle improved this young boy’s life since the distance walked every day, under the rain or extreme heat, will be shortened and easier, increasing his motivation and enabling Santos to continue studying to achieve his dreams.

ALG has been working with Mozambikes, a social company that not only donates bicycles to different projects, based on donations received, but also tries to promote the communities’ development by creating bicycles’ maintenance businesses. For Mozambikes bicycles are a way of promoting health, access to water, education, and employability.