In the Big Give 2025, we set out to transform the lives of Malagasy children.
From 12pm (UK time) on Tuesday 2nd December, to 12pm on Tuesday 9th December, the campaign ran, and during that time, everything you, our generous supporters, donated, was doubled in value thanks to our generous pledgers and our Champion Fundraiser the Coles Medlock Foundation.
We reached our target for the week, of £50,000 in donations, by the late night/early morning of Saturday/Sunday 6th and 7th odf December, which meant – because of our Champion Fundraiser Coles Medlock and our pre-pledger’s generous promise to match every penny we raised – that we received more than £100,000.
Thank you so much for your generosity, and for your support in getting the word out so peole knew what was happening and how they could be involved. It’s the most we have ever raised in an individual appeal and we’re really blown away by your kindness and support: we will continue to live up to your belief in us, just as you amaze us and fill us with joy with your backing, which enables us to do everything we do.
Your doubled donation will be used to transform and improve the lives of Malagasy children, through our Education for Life and Children for the Future programmes.
Education for Life
Education is a fundamental human right, yet tens of thousands of Malagasy children either cannot attend school, or are unable to fulfil their potential within it.
Education for Life (EfL) works with Malagasy partners and communities to improve education and access to it for thousands of youngsters and in many cases adults each year.
This includes:
Teacher training to improve education to the highest possible standards
Provision of equipment including tablets, books, educational games and school kits (pens, pencils, bags, exercise and text books)
School refurbishments (including but not limited to installing libraries, carrying our repairs and extensions)
Infrastructure improvements: many Malagasy youngsters cannot access school during certain periods of the year. EfL has improved roads, rebuilt bridges and made sure no child is unable to reach school
School fees: in cases where families cannot afford to send their children to school, we and our partners have covered those expenses to ensure they can attend
And Education for Life goes deeper.
Because one in ten Malagasy children don’t reach their tenth birthday, and 50 per cent suffer stunting due to malnutrition.
Hunger, illness and lack of resources prevent many children attending school, and 40 per cent of Malagasy children don’t complete even primary school.
In response to this challenge, EfL:
Ensures schools have safe, clean, drinking water to reduce risk of disease: this includes installing water points in schools which have none
Provides sanitation and hygiene training to children and school staff
Ensures that schools provide at least one healthy, nutritious meal each day to children, so they are not too hungry to learn, or too weak to fight disease. This includes helping youngsters and staff set up and operate vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, and run canteens
Works with parents to help them grow more food, and to improve their own education including literacy, so they can improve incomes and access to food
As part of the Solar United Madagascar consortium, we also provide energy and lighting from solar-powered technology, so Malagasy families can light their homes and cook in the evenings, without using dangerous and damaging kerosene-burning lanterns. In this way, we help ensure children and adults can work and learn together at home, eat well and do so at no risk to their health or lives.
One example of EfL’s united approach – helping children and helping adults to help then – can be found at the EPP (Primary School) Fonenana.
It has been part of EfL since 2020, and has benefitted from our partner AVM helping set up and run water, sanitation and hygiene training, a school canteen, teacher training, training in nutrition, literacy training for parents, and training for parents in agroecology and market gardening.
The programme has also delivered a new library open to children, teachers and parents.
Elina Omega Miorantsoa, 28, is a mother of three children who attend EPP Fonenana, and used the library to become a seamstress.
She said: ‘I knew almost nothing with my hands. Today, I’m a seamstress.
‘AVM encouraged us, the parents, to use the school library. One day, I borrowed a book on sewing. This aroused a great curiosity in me. I read it carefully, then I started to practice, little by little, with the means at hand. By dint of perseverance, I learned to sew. Thanks to books, I weaved a better future.’
She now makes clothes and home items for sale to everyone in her region.
She said: ‘Before, only my husband worked. We lived in precariousness. Today, we can cover our children’s school fees and even put some money aside. I am proud to contribute to my family’s future.’
Children for the Future
As well as education, every child has a right to shelter, to clothing, food, water and care.
But some, especially those unable to live with their families, do not have access to all of these. Forced onto the streets, Malagasy children can find themselves pushed to commit crime to survive.
In our Children for the Future programme, we work with Malagasy organisations to make sure these children are not ‘left behind’.
CfF ensures those children – more than 1,000 every year, from babies to young people aged 18 – have the:
Shelter
Food
Water
Healthcare
Access to education
Occupational preparation and training
Clothing
And the care and attention they need and deserve.
Maminirina Randrianarison, 14, has lived at the Akany Avoko Faravohitra centre since September 2024. Her mother had died, and she was supposed to be cared for by an aunt, who abused her.
She said: ‘When I came to the centre, I was really sad, but after two weeks, I felt comfortable knowing that I was welcome here: the educators, the director, and the other girls who arrived at the centre before me welcomed me with tenderness.
‘They comforted me by saying that the centre is not a prison, as I had feared, but a place of education and learning, and that one day I will leave here with a lot of knowledge. They encouraged me a lot and lifted my spirits. I felt a great change in my life.
‘Now, my sadness has disappeared. I feel good living at the AAF centre. I feel comfortable, no more suffering.’
These are life-changing, transformational programmes, in which MfM, Malagasy organisations, and Malagasy communities use their initiative, dedication and expertise to children, young people and the wider communities of which they are part and to which they contribute.
But we can only do this with your support. And you delivered that so strongly: thank you so much. In total, we received £101,602, for which we are so grateful, and with which we will use to help Madagascar’s children receive the care and the education they deserve.
And because by helping Malagasy children, you also help Malagasy communities going forward, helping them reach their potential and improve lives, livelihoods, health and wellbeing, your generosity is double your impact in terms of cash but also in terms of reach.
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