Madagascar: Village schools for resilient children
Madagascar has a young population. Yet many of the children here have no access to education. VOZAMA is committed to ensuring that girls and boys in remote villages can learn to read, write and do arithmetic.
With your donation, you will strengthen educational work on the ground and support Misereor’s global efforts to promote fair opportunities in life.
- Africa
In Madagascar, around a third of the population can neither read nor write; only two in three children attend school at all. In rural areas, the nearest primary school is often kilometres away. Many families live in extreme poverty and cannot afford school uniforms, exercise books and textbooks.
Opening up pathways out of poverty through education
Misereor’s partner organisation, VOZAMA, supports village communities in setting up local pre-schools and schools and trains teachers. The initiative also helps to provide basic supplies such as exercise books, pens and books, so that no child is excluded from education for financial reasons.
This commitment breaks the cycle of poverty and lack of education: every year, around 5,000 children learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic in the village schools. As they get older, many make the transition to state secondary schools – and more than half go on to obtain a recognised qualification.
Securing food supplies and preserving nature
As Madagascar suffers increasingly from periods of drought and unpredictable weather, VOZAMA combines school education with sustainable agriculture and environmental protection. Tree nurseries and reforestation projects are revitalising depleted soils. Schoolchildren and families are learning how to grow vegetables and hardy crops to prevent malnutrition and ensure harvests even in extreme weather conditions.
Here’s what our local partners achieved last year:
- Over 5,000 children were given access to schooling in their home villages.
- 100 per cent of parents in the pilot projects were able to pay the school fees themselves.
- 88 per cent of teachers successfullypassed additional qualifying examinations.
- 680,000 seedlings were used for reforestation and soil conservation.
- Around 1,000 kilograms of table potatoes helped to improve the diet of the participating families.
Would you like to find out more about our charity projects? Then read our magazine “Weiter.wirken” now. The magazine about and for the people who make a difference at Misereor.
When making a donation by bank transfer, please quote the reference ‘S63107/Madagascar village schools’ in the payment details. This lets us know which project is particularly close to your heart; your contribution will be used as a general donation towards this work and Misereor’s overall global mission.
To ensure that your donation has an impact in the long term, Misereor uses a small proportion for important administration an related tasks. This way, we make sure that projects are selected carefully and implemented responsibly and that their effects are regularly monitored. Should it not be possible to use your donation as planned, we will use it where it is currently needed most.
Our local partner organisations
VOZAMA
Misereor works with the literacy movement VOZAMA in Madagascar. The name is an abbreviation and means "Let's save the children of Madagascar". The initiative was founded in 1995 to break the vicious circle of illiteracy and poverty. In addition to primary education, VOZAMA also promotes various development activities for parents, offers counselling services for health care and environmental protection and campaigns for children's and women's rights.
Mona Plate
Donor Communications
- Telephone
- +49 241 442518
- mona.plate@misereor.de
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