Mobile units register thousands in Mozambique

35,000 children and adults who never had the chance to register their births now have official identities, thanks to a Plan-funded mobile registration campaign in Mozambique.

The two-month project carried out in partnership with the Provincial Directorate of Registration and Notary of Inhambane Province provided 10 mobile registration brigades which travelled to five villages in Jangamo and seven villages in Maxixe.

Many children in Mozambique do not have birth certificates - partly because people are deterred from travelling long distances to registration centres and because they cannot afford the money normally needed to become registered.

The mobile registration brigades tackled these problems by taking registration units directly into villages.

Cacilda Ezequiel Macamo, aged 45, only got the chance to record her birth when she visited the mobile registration post in her village to register her three children.

Cacilda says that a person without identity is 'not as Mozambican as other people.' It is necessary to 'have a nationality'.

Without an identity children and adults cannot access their rights - including the right to an education. Now Cacilda's children will finally be able to go to school.

For Delfina Cuamba, a 28 year old mother of three, the project has come at the right time. She believes the project must be encouraged and empowered to support communities.

"The birth registration campaigns are very good, because they give the children the opportunity to have a document for their life in the future. Without the project I would not have enough money to pay the transport to the village where the birth registration department is located and to pay for the registration itself," she said.

The mobile registration campaign has been so successful that plans are now underway to extend it across the Jangamo and Maxixe districts.

Plan's Universal Birth Registration campaign has helped to register millions of children across the world.