Africa-Press – Mozambique. Marcelina, who graduated five years ago, sells molina (a cassava dessert) from street corners in the suburbs of Maputo to support her family, like thousands of other Mozambican graduates who are reinventing themselves in the face of unemployment.
While the doors to the job market remain closed, Marcelina Chipanga, 38, who graduated in Administration between 2014 and 2019, walks the streets of Mali – a peripheral neighbourhood in Maputo province – in a tireless search for a better future.
Abandoned by her husband with a child and no means of support in 2017, Marcelina decided to create her own path, initially making badjias (bean pastries) and later molina, which she sold mainly at the university.
After completing her studies and after numerous failed attempts to find a job, she found herself once again forced to “reinvent herself”.
“I currently sell molina and coconut muffins,” she explains to Lusa, moments after finishing her sales for the day, with half unsold – she “rarely” manages to sell all of her merchandise.
The price of the coconut muffins, made in the early hours of the morning, varies between five meticais (0.06 cents) and 110 meticais (€1.5). Her usual clientele is students and shop workers.
In a country where young people face high unemployment rates and where entrepreneurship is emerging as a necessity, Marcelina continues to dream of a “better tomorrow”.
“Five years have passed, documents going back and forth, in a rush, but there is nothing new. We are just waiting,” she laments.
Faced with the lack of employment, many graduates see entrepreneurship as a way to escape inactivity and generate some income, a sign of the real impact of unemployment in the country.
Government figures indicate that unemployment in Mozambique increased by 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024, with 190,558 unemployed people registered, compared to 187,149 in the third quarter.
Estefânia Sega, 27 years old, is another example of the harsh post-graduation reality in the country. With a degree in architecture and physical planning acquired between 2017 and 2024, she saw her small dreams crumble when the professional world turned its back on her.
Between “anxiety attacks” and doubts about her acquired abilities, the young woman sought social support to buttress her convictions.
“Sometimes I feel that fear: do I not know enough? But there is always someone backstage (…) who says ‘be strong, defend what you studied, you are capable, you can do it,” she tells Lusa.
Faced with the challenges imposed by unemployment, Estefânia decided to swap her sketches for sewing thread and needles, and what initially seemed like a detour became a way to reconnect with her “first passion”, sewing.
“I was passionate about sewing from a very young age, before architecture,” she confessed, sitting in front of her white sewing machine and starting work on yet another piece.
With the sound of the sewing machine, Estefânia regains the autonomy that her job once denied her, putting dreams and goals into each piece she makes, without giving up on a possible future in architecture.
Despite the challenges imposed on graduates by the market, the number of higher education institutions in Mozambique has grown from 53 in 2019 to 57 in 2024, according to government data.
The higher education enrolment rate in the country is 8.19%, with only eight of every 100 Mozambicans of higher education age enrolled in the system.
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