Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Poverty in Mozambique is a structural problem that conditions the exercise of rural women’s rights. Our research is a contribution to the enrichment of the methodological options for rural development, reflecting on how to influence poverty reduction and sustainable development through education. Education, from the perspective of capabilities, has a transformative potential when it focuses on the specific needs of rural women in terms of respect for human rights, in social, economic and health aspects. The rural Bantu women are a foundation for restorative justice and, if educated, also for sustainable development. The case study supports to the observation of Cooperation for Development work, identifying changes in the lives of rural women in Mozambique, through educational experiences. From 2015 to 2020 - in the districts of Búzi and Zavala, Sofala and Inhambane provinces - the intervention of one specific donor and civil society has empowered women through the acquisition of knowledge and skills about sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, peace and citizenship. The analysis of the data points to a model of action by Cooperation for Development that needs to be renewed, in a process of innovation to empower rural women and vulnerable groups. Those who became citizens of sustainability, in their communities, spread the knowledge to more distant communities to produce change in the lives of local people by fulfilling the social, economic and health needs, generating transformation.