Primary school education in Madagascar
Organisation: Madagascar Development Fund
Location: Ambatomalaza, Madagascar
Project: Building a new 3 room classroom
The Madagascar Development Fund is a small charity founded by the last British Ambassador to Madagascar, Brian Donaldson. Brian lives in the country's capital, Antananarivo, and with the help of his small Malagasy staff evaluates each project after a request comes in. If the project meets their strict criteria it gets added to a waiting list until funding becomes available. In a country where 75% of the population live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day, the need is great and the resources increasingly scarce, so the list continues to grow. One example is that a recent estimate found the need for an additional 3000 primary schools in the country.
Adsum supplied funds for a new primary school in Ambatomalaza, about one hour east of Antananarivo. Demand for education had outgrown the old school building that was built by villagers in 1984, as there were 80 schoolchildren in 2010 and this swelled to 180 in 2011. Children walk up to 4km each way to school and most of those attending could not afford to attend the fee paying private catholic and protestant schools in the village. In one of the poorest countries on earth widespread poverty means that few children have anything to eat between leaving home and their return from school several hours later and for that reason many parents have no option but to keep their children at home.
On a visit to Madagascar we witnessed this poverty first hand but also the desire of the community to help their children get an education. Villagers supply materials and labour for this and other building projects so that it is a true community project and through this the village has demonstrated its willingness to educate their children.
