Unemployed Mozambican Youth Make "Coins" at Former Textile Giant

The sun is still hiding, but Fernando is already in line with dozens of unemployed young people in Chimoio who are trying to carry bags in the warehouses of what was once the largest Mozambican textile factory, Textáfrica, now almost in ruins.

"Almost every morning, over 100 people are outside (...) They are young people, people under 40 (...) who are trying to make a living here. This is a lack of jobs, although it is possible to do some coins here", Fernando Ximbitana, the oldest member of the group, explains to Lusa, minutes before starting to unload one of the several trucks that bring goods to the warehouses of the old factory.

Textáfrica, once a reference in textile production in Southern Africa, closed its doors more than two decades ago, leaving a gigantic infrastructure in Chimoio, a "bankrupt white elephant" in the province of Manica, in the center of the country.

Considered by many to be the "heart" of Chimoio, in full activity, the factory employed four thousand workers, most of whom were left without work, as, with the company's bankruptcy, the textile sector in Mozambique also died.

"Anyone who was a dyer, a spinner and a weaver couldn't get a job anywhere because there were no more textile factories", explains Angêlo Jerónimo, currently responsible for maintaining Textáfrica's infrastructures, to Lusa.

In addition to being a factory worker, Angêlo Jerónimo was a football player, a reference for the Grupo Desportivo e Recreativo da Textáfrica do Chimoio, the first national football champion formed by the old company and which still survives, although currently in the last position of the league table. main competition of Mozambican football.

Today, in addition to the club, what remains of Textáfrica, seized by the bank in the bankruptcy process, serves as warehouses rented to small business owners looking for space to store goods.

With his 12th class certificate at home, Fernando Ximbitana today leads the group of young people who unload these products.

On average, Ximbitana takes home at least 100 meticais (just over one euro) a day to support his three children and his wife.

"We're sorry that you pay little, but it's worth being here rather than having handcuffs on your arms", says Ximbitana, with her eyes on the next truck that has just entered the old factory premises.

"There are a lot of people who have finished the 12th grade, but they are here carrying bags (...) I am one of them. I depend on it to support my family, but if I get malaria my house will be in bad shape", adds Ximbitana.

There are thousands of bags of different products that are unloaded into small and large trucks, in a contagious and apparently easy frenzy to "get around" a problem that, in a universe of 32 million Mozambicans, affects a third of the approximately 9.4 million of young people in the country: unemployment.

"Our body gets used to this weight", explains Henriques Vasco, 32 years old, to Lusa.

Besides the bags on their heads and the dust of merchandise, what remains here for this youth are the stories of the good times that the factory brought to Chimoio.

"My mother told me that in this factory there were even daycare centers for the workers' children. I grew up here. It's sad to see it like this," says Salume Xirama, a warehouse worker whose mother worked at Textáfrica for decades, to Lusa.

Today, in common, the dozens of young people who work here have the same dream: to see the factory working again.

"We have a lack of jobs here and it would be important to see this factory working. We make these coins, but it is not sustainable", Viana Alfredo, 20, another young porter, tells Lusa.

This is a dream fueled by political promises already known in Chimoio, especially during electoral periods, but those who have dedicated the last decades to protecting what remains of the infrastructure know that it takes more than "speeches".

"After so many years linked to this, I have my doubts (...) It would be good to see this industry revitalized, perhaps in different ways. But I have doubts", concluded the infrastructure maintenance manager at Textáfrica.