What is Casa Reom?

Casa Reom is a charity for helping street children in Beira, Mozambique. It is supported by Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and is managed locally by a Mozambican, Pastor Antonio Bonga. Casa Reom has a town centre building, an out-of-town site and a small orphanage. It looks after over 90 children: loving them, parenting them, schooling them, and teaching them employment skills.

History of Casa Reom

In 1989 there were many homeless children whose parents had been killed by the civil war. 5 missionaries started a refuge at a building in the centre of Beira and called it 'Casa Reom' which means 'House of the Good Shepherd'. They cleaned up the building and offered breakfast, lunch and dinner to street children. Children started to come, and then they started to let them sleep there. YWAM and St. Matthew's Church, Rugby, helped with the finance to provide beds, food, schooling.

A team from St. Matthew's Church, visited in January 2004. They found that the Casa Reom building in town was in poor condition, the number of children had increased to over 40 and there was no more space, and no facilities to teach the children skills so that they could become independant. It was decided that an additional out-of-town site would be ideal. This could take more children, teach vocational skills, and preserve the ethos and culture of Casa Reom. The vision would be realised mainly by 'self help' by local Mozambiquans, but a UK charity, Casa Reom Trust would be created to raise funds and UK church members would provide support with the building, planning, occasional visits and encouragement. .

Current situation

A large site, near a village called Inhamizua just outside Beira, has been bought and dormitories, class rooms, kitchen, toilets have been built and are almost finished. A new school has started on this site - this also provides an educaton for local village children. About 70 boys now live on the Inhamizua site, attend school, learn skills and are prepared for independance. The town building is being used as an office for the administration work and as a place for people to stay. In addition, a piece of land has been bought for growing food and training the children in agriculture
Casa Reom has taken over the running of another orphanage, Dondo. This has over 25 smaller children: from a few weeks old up to the age of 10.