Help Ito Rebuild and Thrive Amidst Unrest

Hi Everyone,

I am sure most of you have heard Rikus and I speak of Ito from Mozambique at some point over the past 8 years. We first me Ito when traveling to Mozambique on vacation in 2016. We spent a few nights in Vilanculos at the Zombie Cucumber B&B to experience real Mozambican life before jetting off to andBeyond Benguerra where we got engaged. Ito was our bartender at the Zombie Cucumber and he also took us on local tour, showing us the market, local school and even his home. Ito struck us as an extremely upstanding young man who's sole purpose was to help his community. We stayed in touch with Ito and started supporting some of his local, personal and community projects monetarily - each with the goal to better his life as well as his community.

We helped him build a chicken farm, running water for his home and in turn he started selling water and building water systems for others in his community, donating supplies each fall to the local school where his cousin works, building an addition on his basic home and finally helping him build a boat that allowed him to catch fish to feed his community.

Ito has encountered many hardships throughout the 8 years that we have known him including him and others in his family contracting malaria, typhoons causing destruction to his home and boat, not being allowed to go to sea b/c he didn't have a motor, getting stuck at sea for 6 days b/c the winds couldn't bring the boat back to shore, not knowing where his next paycheck would come from and now severe political unrest.

Up and to this point Rikus and I have not gone wide with Ito's story or asked for help but we feel at this point we need to do everything we can do to help Ito and his family (wife and three children + his community as we know he will pay it forward). For those who haven't seen the news on Mozambique it has seen renewed election unrest with a rigged election and violence as the output. The US, Britain and other nations have condemned the escalating violence in Mozambique. Mozambique has already been through a horrendous civil war from 1977-1992 and over the past 10 years ago the country was finally getting to a better place where there were no more land mines and tourism was returning. It's one of the best countries we have travelled to.

Please help us support Ito and his family during this turbulent time, any amount helps as $25 USD converts to about $1,600 Mozambican Metacais and goes REALLY far.

Thank you!