AILSA CHANG, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Ailsa Chang in Culver City, California.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
And I'm Juana Summers in Xai Xai, in Gaza Province on the coast of Mozambique. The reason I'm here has to do with cuts to U.S. foreign aid and some geographical confusion.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas, 50 million.
SUMMERS: That was President Trump early in his second term, bragging about cuts from Elon Musk's DOGE team.
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TRUMP: And you know what's happened to them? They've used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?
SUMMERS: In fact, no condoms were being sent anywhere in the Middle East, but the narrative was being spread by the president's supporters, like Fox News host Jesse Watters.
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JESSE WATTERS: That's right. Hamas floats these things up with bomb-making materials, and then - kaboom, a booby-trapped condom. Look it up.
SUMMERS: Journalists did look it up and concluded that the Gaza in question was probably Gaza Province here in Mozambique, Africa, but that hardly seemed to matter. Standing in the Oval Office, Musk told reporters.
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ELON MUSK: Some of the things that I say will be incorrect. Nobody's going to bat 1,000. You know, if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I'm like, OK, that's not as bad, but still, you know, why are we doing that (laughter)?
SUMMERS: The why is because this nation has the second-largest AIDS epidemic in the world, and Gaza Province is the hardest hit spot in the country. That's according to Arminda Nafungo (ph), who runs the organization ACTIVA (ph).
ARMINDA NAFUNGO: (Through interpreter) ACTIVA is an association here in Gaza Province, and its primary activity is to save lives. We are all social activists. It's for the love of life.
SUMMERS: ACTIVA was founded by Arminda Nafungo's mother back in 1994 to promote the role of women in the economy of Gaza province. Since then, the mission has expanded to focus on young women and girls who were disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS. Nafungo says that work did not include condom distribution. Instead, they did social work, mentoring and sexual health education, at least until January 2025.
NAFUNGO: (Through interpreter) Yeah, they explained it through email that the cut was coming from the president of the United States.
SUMMERS: Can you tell me what that was like and what your first reaction was?
NAFUNGO: Oof.
(Through interpreter) It was so scary because it was an abrupt cut. It happened all of a sudden. It felt like a very critical moment.
SUMMERS: ACTIVA was already stretched thin. Floods earlier this year destroyed their offices, forcing them to work out of a temporary space. There's also a severe fuel shortage due to the U.S. war with Iran. People can spend a full day waiting in line to get fuel. And despite those challenges, workers are still showing up...
JOSE BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: ...Even if they're not being paid anymore. Jose Bento says this wasn't just a job. It was something from the heart.
BENTO: To save and change life. Yeah.
SUMMERS: "I want to tell you a story," he tells me. "It's painful, but it will help you understand."
BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "Leticia was 12 when she was referred to us," Bento tells me.
BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "Her mom didn't know what was wrong with her, but my colleague and I saw the signs of HIV. With treatment, she began to recover," he continues. "I helped her make up her schoolwork. She was like a sister to me. But with the funding cuts, I stopped visiting. Her mom was away, and she stayed with her grandmother. I didn't see her for three months. Then I got a call. Leticia was pregnant."
BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "I knew some of her neighbors tried to do a traditional abortion, but we lost contact and she died," Bento says. "She was 13 years old."
BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "It's heartbreaking," he continues. "This isn't just a funding cut. It's people's lives."
BENTO: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: The funding that's been cut came from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR launched after President George W. Bush made a moral case for ending the AIDS epidemic in 2003. The program had bipartisan support for decades. It's often cited as an example of the U.S.'s moral leadership in the world. But in the name of ending waste and foreign dependence, the Trump administration has made fundamental changes to PEPFAR.
And in Mozambique, one of the most successful programs had been a PEPFAR initiative called DREAMS. It's a program focused on HIV prevention, specifically for adolescent girls and young women. ACTIVA was one of many groups which implemented DREAMS, says Regina Mhabanga (ph).
REGINA MHABANGA: (Through interpreter) We have a huge number of girls in need.
SUMMERS: In Gaza Province, the program supported girls with the books and uniforms they needed to go to school. Regina Mhabanga worked as a mentor for DREAMS. She recruited 80 girls to participate in the program.
MHABANGA: (Through interpreter) But the children lost that opportunity, and the worst is, I work in my community. That was heartbreaking. It hurts me as a person.
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SUMMERS: So we're here at a neighborhood in Xai Xai, and we're going with Regina, one of the DREAMS mentors. This young woman that we're going to see, she's been working with the DREAMS program and benefiting from their services since 2024.
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SUMMERS: Nadia Maringue is 22. She sits next to her cousin, Margareta Magave. She's 24.
NADIA MARINGUE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "We learned a lot from our DREAMS mentors," Maringue tells me. "They taught us life skills, how to behave within the community, how to have healthy conversations."
MARGARETA MAGAVE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "Besides that," her cousin adds, "they taught us business skills, so we can support ourselves."
Nadia Maringue is one of five children. Her family's business is farming. Her father grows crops like corn, beans, lettuce and onions. All of those crops were swallowed by flooding earlier this year.
MARINGUE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "The cuts were a disaster," she tells me. "If it continues this way, many other girls won't be able to learn these skills, and they won't flourish."
MARINGUE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: Mentors also met with young women and girls in small groups, teaching them regular lessons on things like active listening and communication, as well as gender-based violence. I ask the young women if they still have their notebooks from those classes.
MARINGUE: Yeah, it's all we have (ph).
SUMMERS: Maringue runs inside to grab hers.
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MARINGUE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: "We learned about reproductive health," she says, "how to prevent pregnancy, how to prevent disease."
Is there anything else that you want us to know about your experience with the program or what things are like now that the funding has gone away?
MARINGUE: (Non-English language spoken).
SUMMERS: Maringue tells me, "what makes us sad is that besides being our mentors, they were our friends. We can even consider them like mothers." For now, though, her cousin says, without that support, she and the other DREAMS girls feel abandoned.
Arminda Nafungo tells me ACTIVA is not just standing by and watching. She says they will continue to apply for funding with other partners and that above all else, they're encouraging people to stick with prevention and treatment so that when the project comes back, there won't be many lost lives.
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SUMMERS: A U.S. State Department spokesperson said that the new direct agreement with Mozambique's government on global health cooperation, quote, "protects American lives while strengthening Mozambique's ability to detect, prevent and control infectious diseases" and said that the America First global health strategy has strengthened PEPFAR.
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SUMMERS: This story and all of our reporting in South Africa and Mozambique was supported by the Pulitzer Center. These stories were produced by Matt Ozug and Vincent Acovino. They were edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon. Special thanks to NPR's Kate Bartlett. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
