Day 24: A new team in action!
2024 was a year of many changes at A Little Gesture. It was a year dedicated to restructuring the team, which translated into more action and more empowerment for those who are on the ground in Mozambique every day.
Historically, A Little Gesture had its project manager in Portugal, who worked daily with the field technicians for each project. This was a difficult job, done remotely and with several trips to the field, with a large supervision and reporting component but also a large component of managing and growing people and projects. At the end of 2023, we decided to hire a local project manager, moving the role to Mozambique. We knew it would be a big leap, but Carlos turned out to be an excellent team member! He joined our Mozambique Coordinator Elisa and our Finance Manager Adina and the three of them are the ‘marvellous’ team that accompanies projects and partners every day and allows us to have better support from Portugal to Mozambique. All this in a new office, A Little Gesture’s first formal office in Mozambique!
But the changes didn’t stop there. We also created a new position in each of the new projects and regions – Local Coordinator – Jaime at São Vicente de Paulo School, Leonildo at Santa Luísa de Marilac School and Arnaldo in the Xai-Xai and Chongoene region. The coordinators were asked to be the support arm of the Local Partner, but also to liaise with all the individual ALG projects within the school or region. In this way, we could better assess needs, identify challenges and, of course, bring good practice between projects.
We also had to develop ourselves. We tried to be increasingly clear about our objectives, metrics and results, so that the local team could be transparent about the organisation’s objectives. We remodelled processes to allow for greater clarity and also simplicity. This greater level of collaboration has allowed us to take a big step towards local empowerment so that we can continue to respond ever better to the needs of the communities where we operate.
We have ambitious goals for 2025, now that we have a more solid basis for moving forward. But with a motivated and united team, we know we can do more! Thank you to everyone who is on the ground every day and is part of our mission!