Relocating Flooded Villages in Zimbawe

Narrator: Rising sea level and flooding, thanks to climate change just
became a global problem, and the Mozambique
government’s solution is to make extraordinary programs
on social engineering.

Over the past three years, 55,000 families around the
quarter of a million people have been persuaded to move
from the delta lowlands to 55 new resettlement villages
built on higher ground that’s safe from flooding.

Zimbawe village is named after Helena Magazo Zimbawe,
the only female chief in the delta.

Helena Magazo Zimbawe: Hello, I’ve come to visit your house. Do you understand?

Female: She carries out regular inspections to ensure that the new
houses are being looked after as she liked.

Helena Magazo Zimbawe: You need to clean up outside and make it look beautiful
and clean the toilets in the morning. Excuse me, I want to
visit this house. What’s the meaning of this? You have left
things all over the place. We’re going now but it will be
good if you get things tidied up. Everything should be in
the right place.

Narrator: The queen, as she is known to her followers persuaded her
people to moved from the lowlands to what is now the
show piece resettlement village built with help from the
government and an Islamic charity.

Here, they have clean water, a school, a clinic and safety.

Helena Magazo Zimbawe: I feel good because here we are not being destroyed by the
water. Although there was my homeland, we were relaxed
because we were frightened of the floods and whether we
would have to leave. We lived in fear of the water but now
we are here to stay. We have built houses so we would be
crazy to go back.

Narrator: Most of her villagers agree. In Zimbawe, Ense John has a
water pump just a few yards from the new home. She lives
here with her husband Domingo Waldemar and four
children. They have spent their lives in a modern red house
down by the river, but now they lived in a brick house in a
new village with its own school and clinic and there is no
danger of flooding.

Domingo Waldemar: I was afraid with the floods but now we’re in a much higher
place so it’s much better. We won’t suddenly have to grab
our positions and run away. It’s much better here.

Narrator: But like the other villagers, Waldemar and Ense have a
problem. The best area for farming is not on the high
ground around the new village but back in the lowlands
where they used to live.

So every morning, Domingo Waldemar and his wife and
child must walk and travel by canoe back to their
farmlands. It’s a journey that can take between one and two
hours each way, but it’s worth it.

Domingo Waldemar: I come this far to do my farming so I can have something to
eat, but the only problem here is the water. There were
floods here last year before the harvest. The land here is
very fertile. Everything you plant it grows from banana and
sugar cane to pumpkins.