A community school for all (children) in Fiarenana

To celebrate the beginning of the new school year all students got soup in their classroom. A lot has changed, since we first started offering soup or food for our students (e.g. 2011). Zahana initially paid for the school food, now the ingredients are provided (mostly) by the community, to the extend they can afford it.

The teacher apologized to the visiting team, explaining that due the current season no vegetables are available to be added to the soup.  Even moringa goes dormant this time of the year, and does not produce many leaves. He was quick to point out that in this year’s curriculum each student will each plant five moringa trees in the schoolyard and tend to the seedlings, to make sure each tree grow as well as possible. Moringa leaves in the soup is becoming a staple for many families and growing more, to support this habit, is always advantageous.

In our school in Fiarenana you need back to school supplies, too. Each student received pencils, a ball pen and notebooks from Zahana, to start the school year fully equipped and ready to study. We were also able to secure some donated schoolbooks in French, as requested by the teacher. 

Links:

• Combining two ideas: Solar cooking with Moringa
• Soup for the school in Fiarenana

It is a great pleasure and exciting for us to announce: Our second village and our school in Fiarenana now has clean water, too!

For many years, the well in our schoolyard was the only source of uncontaminated groundwater for the community. Solar water pasteurization had been embraced by our teacher to make the kids water supply save.

So how was it accomplished? Our very active and engaged teacher had heard that Caritas, a Catholic charity, was accepting proposals or requests for a clean water system. He got hold of the application, applied for the project, and was successful. We are very proud of our teacher for being proactive and congratulate him on his wonderful success!

A team working for Caritas came to the village and built a pipe system from the nearby mountain all the way to the village. This is the same mountain that feeds the clean water system in Fiadanana for over 12 years now. Communal faucets throughout the village provide clean and safe drinking water for everybody. They also went the extra mile and put a faucet in the school’s yard.

This is an important milestone for us. It is the first time in over a decade that a third party undertook a major project, without financial involvement from Zahana. It is also a first that the request was initiated by one of our teachers who lives in the village.

Happy drinking, washing and cooking with clean water in Fiarenana for years to come!

Ihanta and Markus

Links:

• Zahana is building a second school collaboratively in Fiarenana
• Participatory Development Explained - The Zahana Way