Planting 15000 trees in Madagascar

Sometimes we get a picture that does not fit into the confined scope of projects or programs. Assisting and encouraging people to work together, be it building a water system, a school or plant trees as a community wide effort is at the heart of participatory development.

Soccer has long been the favorite sport and past time in Madagascar nation wide as well as in our villages. Zahana has supported the women’s soccer teams in Fiadanana and Fiarenana since 2006 (yes, we have women's and men's teams in each village).

Sponsorship is very practical and immediate: Zahana buys the soccer balls, the air pump, the uniforms and, as in this picture, the soccer shoes. Having a clean and snazzy uniform for their team is a source of great pride, especially for people who may not own many pieces of clothing in the first place.

The end of June (2015) we got very exciting news: Donné and Doré had both been admitted to take the BEPC a nation-wide high school entrance exam (Brevet d'Etude du Premier Cycle).

Some of you may remember Donné and Doré, who had been living for past few years in the small town of Bevato attending secondary school (after they were the among our first students who passed their CEPE in our school in 2011).

Over three days (August 3-5) they took the BREC in the town of Tsiroanomandidy. Their very proud parents and Zahana’s ‘Santa’ accompanied them to the town from their home in Fiadanana.

For over a week everybody waited for the official results to be released. With great pride we can post this August 15 update from Zahana:

“Our brave country boys passed their exam! They are among the 51% in the entire region of Tsiroanomandidy who successfully passed their BEPC. I’m really happy and we will celebrate with them. Supported by Zahana they will be living in Tsiroanomandidy for the next few years and attend high school there. There is no better tenth anniversary gift for Zahana. Back in October 2005, when Raleva our traditional healer donated the land to built our community school nobody even dreamed of such a wonderful result for two of our students. They are the first in their community to ever attend high school”

*Explanatory note: Tsiroanomandidy is the next (and only) bigger town in the area. Tsiroanomandidy can be reached via a paved road from the capital (a four hour’s drive) and has such amenities as a hospital, electricity and a high school. It takes about four to five hours to walk from their village of Fiadanana to Tsiroanomandidy.