Improving children's health and education

SEED is excited to celebrate the completion of its WASH and Education Infrastructure project in Esohihy Primary School! From March to December 2022, SEED’s construction team successfully built a three-room school building that will offer a safe and comfortable learning space for Esohihy’s 144 students and four teachers. SEED also built two three-cubicle pit latrines with menstrual hygiene management facilities, a house for the headmaster and their family, and a 10,000-litre capacity rainwater harvesting system which will provide access to clean drinking water on-site. 

The construction team has effectively overcome important challenges throughout project delivery, such as the flooding of the construction site due to heavy rains, levelling the uneven terrain commonly seen in this region of Anosy, and digging through hard clay which takes much longer than other types of subsoil. Despite these challenges, the team has produced a cyclone-resistant school that can now withstand the unpredictable weather patterns which are sadly becoming more common in Madagascar. 

SEED has trained all four Esohihy teachers in delivering WASH education sessions and installed behavioural nudges and a mural on the latrine walls which will aim to encourage healthy hygiene practices amongst students and teachers. The head teacher revealed that the students were all very excited when they first visited their new school, particularly about the new desk-benches to sit on! The central location of the new school will contribute to making education accessible for the entire community in Esohihy, and the structure will provide space to accommodate for the growing student population. 

SEED is excited to update you on the newest construction project of programme Sekoly: the Esohihy Primary School. Beginning in March, the community and team came together to transform the one-classroom school into a safe and healthy space for its 144 students and four teachers. 

The local community has been involved in its construction, beginning with a traditional ground-breaking ceremony where the community gathered and a community leader blessed the land. Community members graciously provided nearby land for the brick maker’s site to help with high transportation costs, and have assisted the team in helping to deliver bricks to the construction site (pictured). Since the ceremony, the project has faced challenges, but Esohihy Primary School is underway and even has plans to be completed by September 2022. 

In early May, heavy rain caused some slight delay as parts of the construction site flooded, but progress continued and after a few months Esohihy Primary school is taking shape! To date, we have constructed three new classrooms, the foundations of the teachers’ housing, six gender-segregated latrines and the beginning stages of the menstrual health/hygiene management facility. SEED has also trained all four teachers in WASH education, built two hand washing stations, and has even added ‘encouragements’ for healthy habits: a concrete path with footprints leading from the latrines to handwashing stations and an informative WASH mural to prompt good hygiene practice. And on top of all of that, a 10,000-litre rainwater harvesting system will soon be installed to provide the school with a supply of safe drinking water. 

Project Esohihy is coming to life thanks to the community and Sekoly team. We look forward to sharing the final construction stages and ultimately the 150 children making use of a more adequate and safe learning environment.