A community school for all (children) in Fiarenana

Some ideas need time to grow. Some innovations can be combined hand in hand.

Quite a few years ago we introduced solar cooking in our villages. Our head teacher in Fiadanana embraced the idea and has been using the school’s solar cooker for the school lunches. He also embraced our latest reforestation effort of planting a Moringa forest.

The Community got together for the Christmas celebration. As part of the festivities he combined two ideas - solar cooking and our new Moringa project. The result: the photos of solar cooked noodle soup with freshly picked Moringa leaves.

Moringa now grows all over the village and is a powerhouse of nutrition. Fresh Moringa leaves cook very fast and can be added in the last few minutes, or even the end of the cooking process. Just add a few hand-full of freshly picked Moringa leaves. The vitamin A, C, calcium and essential amino acids of this ‘new vegetable’ are now part of a daily meal. It grows for free near many houses, tastes good, and is good for you.

Seeing the children enjoying their soup with Moringa has a far bigger impact than explaining the benefits of adding Moringa to the diet.

Links:

• Planting a Moringa Forest in Madagascar
• One man- one tree - thousand Moringa seedlings

Our CARMMA (health center) in Fiadanana was awarded the ‘prize of excellence’ by Madagascar’s First Lady!

With great joy we congratulate all of our community health workers and the paramedic for their outstanding work that qualified them for the prize of excellence!

Our paramedic, head teacher and all community health workers undertook the once in a lifetime journey to the capital of Antananarivo to receive the reward and their certificates from the hands of the First Lady.

Our community health worker Ms. Laza was chosen to receive the CARMMA award from the hands of the Director of her Regional Health District and the First Lady. In the photo she is towered over by the two of them so you cannot see her on the stage...

Created by the First Lady last year, the prize of excellence for Basic Health Centers (CSB), was awarded this November to five CSBs and one CARMMA  (see background information below). The six centers were chosen after a thorough selection process that included a site visit.

The First Lady hosted the ceremony “Remise des prix d’excellence aux Centre de Santé de Base et CARMMA” (Awards of excellence for Basic Health Centers and CARMMA) on November 27, 2017 at the Palais d'Ambohitsorohitra (Presidential Palace) with over 400 dignitaries and 80 awardees in attendance.

In addition to the certificates, there are material prizes: Mattresses, a solar panel as power supply, 2 cell phones, a bicycle and medical equipment focused on maternal health. As our founder Dr. Ihanta said, with a happy chuckle: “We will need at least two cars to get all their ‘stuff’ back to the CARMMA. We decided, that along the way, 3 of the brand new mattresses are donated to the CSB2 in our district center of Bevato.”

We let the pictures speak for themselves. Cameras were not allowed at the event, so we thank the official photographer for providing us with images.

Background:
CSB stands for Centres Santé de Bases or Basic Health Centers. Over 2600 CSBs in Madagascar are classified level 1 or 2 according to the size of population they serve. People walk to their CSB for basic services, vaccinations and pre-natal screenings. If they cannot be helped there, they are sent to the next hospital, often hours or days away. The CSB1 are staffed by a trained paramedic or nurse. A CSB2, often located in bigger villages or regional centers and staffed by a medical do. tor, and have beds and rooms for patients.

CARMMA stands for Center on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa. CARMMA provide an additional, extra layer of care to reduce maternal mortality. Or, in plain English: do everything humanly possible so less mothers and children die during pregnancy and/or birth. In addition to the usual CSB health services CARMMA have specially trained people and equipment to focus on maternal and infant health. They offer regular pre-and post partum screenings and consultations, nutrition, and infant health check ups, combined with data collection to measure the impact, supported by trained community heath workers. A safe and sanitary space to give birth and drugs to stop postpartum bleeding or infections are part of this CARMMA package.  In a place where there is no ambulance to whisk you off the next hospital a CARMMA having these drugs at hand is literally a question of life and death.

In contrast to the Africa wide ‘Campaign’ that stands for the C in the acronym, in Madagascar C stands for actual brick and mortar Centers that provide services (or implement the goals a campaign aims to promote). There are currently 24 CARMMA in Madagascar offering services all year.

24 CSB are currently designated as CARMMA, with special focus on maternal and newborn health and trained midwifes. Our health center in Fiadanana is a CARMMA, with dedicated rooms for mothers and newborns, and (as we proudly point out) the only CSB in the area with running clean and safe drinking water.

Jeannette and Markus

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Links:

• Opening of the new health center in Fiadanana