Education Madagascar Project #3254

A community school for all (children) in Fiarenana

by Zahana

A community school for all (children) in Fiarenana

Project Report | Jun 5, 2022
Journee des Ecoles

By Markus Faigle | Volunteer Project Director

Celebrating School Day with a dance in Fiadanana

We call it "journée des écoles", which can be translated as “Celebrating School Day”. It is traditionally celebrated the 23rd of February and involves meals and games across the country.

Since Zahana has two schools and we wanted to celebrate with the entire team, so all our teacher could attend both festivities, we held the celebration in Fiadanana on the day itself or February 23 and on February 24 in Fiarenana.

Our coordinator living in the village sent his photos with the following text:

Here is an echo of School Day: On February 23 in Fiadanana we had a special meal for the students at lunch, dancing, plus a friendly soccer match that we held at the EPP (Public Primary school) to actively involve these students as well, since the special day is for all schools and all students in the village.

On Thursday, February 24, 2022, the Fiarenana festivities also inlcuded a special meal for the students at lunch, dancing, and a soccer match. But here we also had a tree planting event with our students. While the parents gathered and danced together, the students planted trees together.

PS: Please watch “Reforestation with seed balls in rural Madagascar” our latest video documenting this seeds balls mada and 'planted' by our students for context.

Our video Combining reforestation with locally made improved cook stoves in Madagascar has seen a great boost in viewership on our YouTube channel in the last few weeks. Please help us to keep this exciting trend going by watching and liking it. If you feel so compelled please also leave a comment, it does make a big difference for the YouTube algorithm.

The scoccer team getting ready

The other soccer team

Dancing in Fiarenana

Planting tree seedlings to celebrate "School Day"

Links:

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Feb 13, 2022
Our students testing seed balls 'in the field'

By Markus Faigle | Volunteer Project Director

Our stundets with their reforestation seed balls

In our villages there is no better time than the rainy season for our students to put their seed balls to the test in the landscape. You might remember that our students made thousands of seed balls in September and October of 2021 during our schools winter break.

The start of the long-awaited rainy season came late this year in Madagascar. By the end of January and early February there was lot of rain in Madagascar, unfortunately far too much in many parts of the country, especially the capital. And we fear that there are more cyclones to come as we write this.

Note: Please watch “Reforestation with seed balls in rural Madagascar” our latest video documenting this historic occasion with our students for context.

In January 2022 our students started the fun project to throw their first 1462 seed balls into the landscape, as you can see in the first part of the video. They also took quite a hike up the mountain to our water tank that feeds our community built water system since 2006. On the slopes of the mountain our next generation of tree planters used more of their seed balls, this time more rolling than throwing it.

Our founder said: “Covering the mountain with a forest again has been a dream of our gardener Bary for many years. Carrying seed balls up the hill instead of baby trees is certainly much easier, especially if he has many little helpers to do it. It is also more fun for the students, than carrying shovels and digging holes for baby trees all day long. And planted baby trees need to be watered by hand to make sure to take root. In the next few months we will see if this technique works as well as we hope. The fertilizer (cow manure) added to the seed balls mix should provide enough nutrients for the seedlings to grow if they get watered almost every day by mother nature. We have asked each student to remember the place where they throw their seed balls, so they come come back and check on the progress every week”

Please stay tuned for more seed ball reforestation updates soon.

Links:

Throw a seed ball for reforestation

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Dec 29, 2021
Santa sighting in a rural village in Madagascar

By Markus Faigle | Volunteer Project Director

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