Help us Build Manambaro Lycee

SEED Madagascar’s ongoing work at Manambaro Lycée was kicked off in 2017 with a monitoring visit by the Head of Construction: Lomba, our WASH Officer: Alex and our Construction Project Development Officer: Laure. Together they met with the school’s Headmistress, the parents’ association President and two well and sanitation committee members. The team returned home happy with the steady progress of Project Sekoly at the Lycée and are thrilled about major public health improvements within the school. The construction of the new school building’s latrine block was delayed until March 2017 due to urgent needs in another school that SEED is currently working on. However, this does not mean that the Manambaro Lycée is dormant in any way: school staff and students are exhibiting exceptional Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) behaviour!

Although the school is not entirely an open defecation (OD) free site, our monitoring visit only showed minimal signs of the practice. Further investigation and meetings with the Headmistress helped to explain the OD: many new students arrive at the beginning of the year from a wide geographical area, including rural communities with non-existent or underdeveloped sanitation facilities, so a little bit of OD is to be expected at the beginning of the school year. In response, the Headmistress has been running WASH education sessions for the new students at the start of every year, informing them about latrine use and maintenance alongside the school’s strict policies on these. This quick and well-thought out response from the Headmistress stops students from reverting to OD throughout the year – and is evidence of her fantastic passion for WASH!

Well well well...

The school’s commitment to WASH is also reflected by the maintenance of the well located on school grounds. Over the summer holidays, school staff found that the well had been broken by community members who had been using the well. Immediately before the start of the school year, well maintenance committee members dismantled the well and discovered a break in the internal mechanism. They subsequently repaired the cracks without support, facilitation or prompting from SEED.

Meet Madame Angéline: the Manambaro Lycée FRAM President!

Madame Angéline is the FRAM President of Manambaro Lycée – the highly motivated parents’ association. She was elected by the FRAM in January 2015 and has since been representing the parents of the students at Manambaro Lycée. With her own children currently studying at the Lycée, Madame Angéline is able to relate easily to fellow parents and students, and understand the issues they face. Developing the school and improving access to education for the students has always been a great challenge in Manambaro. Before Project Sekoly, many obstacles hindered the students’ educational progress and attainment. There was a lack of access to drinking water, the students and staff had to resort to OD, and the lack of classroom space available affected the students’ ability to study and then perform well during their final Baccalaureate exams.

Madame Angéline believes that Project Sekoly has been highly beneficial for the students at the Lycée. Hygiene behaviour has drastically improved, and she is happy that the school now has a functioning well on site, which prevents students drinking from contaminated water sources. One of the favourite parts of Madame Angéline’s role as FRAM president is to motivate the children to go to school. As such, she is particularly excited about the new school buildings constructed throughout Modules 1 and 2 and the increased capacity they will bring.