In Chibuto, Mozambique’s southern Gaza Province, Avidência Cossa mentors younger girls to build confidence and turn their ideas into action.

Picture 1: Avidência Cossa, a Chibuto Nest facilitator and mentor. Picture 2: Avidência caring for chickens at the project she leads.

Avidência Cossa once struggled to share her ideas. Today, she leads a poultry project in Chibuto, Mozambique, and mentors’ younger girls as they build the confidence to pursue their own ambitions.

She was 29 when she joined the Chibuto Nest in 2025, becoming one of its first five trained facilitators. A trained teacher and mother of twins, she had struggled to find stable work after the private schoolshe taught at, closed.

“I learned that being a woman does not mean being weak, and that my ideas have value.”— Avidência Cossa, Chibuto facilitator

The Nest, a local learning and support space, is part of the Graça Machel Trust’s Pan-African Adolescent Girls’ Movement, delivered locally with Associação Cross Moçambique (ACM). The training, co-created with adolescent girls themselves, combines learning about rights and leadership with opportunities to act on community needs. Trained facilitators support that learning while developing their own capacity to mentor.

Avidência saw a gap in local egg production: traders in Chibuto relied on suppliers outside the district. She wanted to produce closer to home. She began with chicken farming while working towards a future egg-production venture.

Her proposal won the Movement’s’s Innovation Challenge. Rather than build alone, she invited two younger Movement members to join her, creating an opportunity to share knowledge and learn together.

Space was the next hurdle. After hearing the team present its plans, Fundação para o Desenvolvimento da Comunidade’s (FDC) – a non-profit organisation that works in various parts of Mozambique- offered the use of unused land. By March 2026, the team had built a coop, registered the business and purchased its first chicks.

The newly built chicken coop and Chickens at the project.

Avidência reports that the project is generating income and expanding its equipment and chick stock. She is also sharing poultry-farming skills with other girls, according to ACM Executive Director Doroteia Paulo Balane.

“The project has also given her a practical opportunity to develop her entrepreneurial skills and strengthen her capacity for economic self-reliance.”— Doroteia Paulo Balane, Executive Director, ACM.

Avidência’s role goes beyond running the enterprise. As a facilitator, Innovation Challenge winner and Steering Committee member, she is also helping younger Movement members develop their ideas. Juliet Kimotho, the Movement’s Manager at the Trust, describes her as a ‘nurturing eagle’ who is encouraging entrepreneurship among younger girls.

“Leadership is defined by the change you create, not merely the knowledge you possess.”— Juliet Kimotho, Manager, Pan-African Adolescent Girls’ Movement Manager

Lialiana Carlos Novela, a 21-year-old Nest member and Grade 12 student, works alongside Avidência on the poultry project. She also serves on the Steering Committee. Her account shows how mentorship and mutual support work together.

“I believe that together we are stronger, and that by sharing knowledge, we can grow and achieve our goals.”— Lialiana Carlos Novela, Chibuto Nest member

Picture 1: Lialiana Carlos Novela works alongside Avidência and serves on the Nest’s Steering Committee. Picture 2: Doroteia Paulo Balane, ACM Executive Director, reports on the project’s progress and peer learning.

The progress belongs to the women and girls putting their ideas into practice, with support from the Trust, ACM and local partners. Facilitator training, the Innovation Challenge and access to land each played a different part in helping Avidência move from a proposal to a working project that others can learn from.

The girls are helping grow the Movement themselves. According to Juliet, an initial group of 15 girls encouraged 100 more to join. ACM also points to participants inviting their peers as evidence of the Movement’s value to them.

That sense of belonging matters to Celestina Sérgio Sampaio, 19, a Grade 12 student at Escola Secundária de Chibuto.

“Because no girl grows alone. I want other girls to experience the support, training and opportunity to dream that I found in the Nest.”— Celestina Sérgio Sampaio, Chibuto Nest member

Fifteen-year-old Natacha da Surpresa Zacarias Tivane, a Grade 10 student at the same school, describes a change in how she takes part: ‘I learned that my opinion matters and can help find a solution.’ She now feels more confident discussing violence and the lack of opportunities for young people.

Picture 1: Celestina Sérgio Sampaio encourages other girls to join the Movement. Picture 2: Natacha da Surpresa Zacarias Tivane says she has become more confident sharing her views.

Beyond the Nest, members led outreach discussions in two rural communities in Chibuto, addressing barriers to education, early marriage and girls’ leadership.

Avidência’s next ambition is a poultry supply business that makes feed, chicks and equipment more accessible to local farmers. Alongside that goal, she wants younger girls to believe in their own ability to study, build and lead. Her journey shows how support for one facilitator can become practical encouragement for others. “My dreams did not die. They found wings in the Movement.”— Avidência Cossa.

Support that helps ideas take shape

Picture: Colleagues at ACM during on-site support to strengthen delivery of the Community Igniters initiative. Picture 2: The poultry project’s enclosure during its early development in Chibuto.

Picture 1: Chicks at the poultry project, pictured during its early implementation. Picture 2: A visit to the poultry project site, documented as the initiative moved into operation.

Chibuto Nest members and the Graca Machel Trust team celebrate together as part of the Movement’s community activities.