This year’s Big Give campaign – our largest of the year and this time our largest ever – raised money for our Education for Life (EfL) and Children for the Future (CfF) programmes.
Your amazing generosity and support, combined with our pre-pledgers and our Champion Fundraiser the Coles-Medlock Foundation, have delivered us an amazing £101,602 – thank you!
EfL and CfF work with Malagasy partner organisations and Malagasy communities to ensure:
Malagasy children have access to the best possible education, as well as the health and freedom from hunger to make the most of that access
Malagasy adults have access to skills and other training to lift themselves and their families from poverty, and
Malagasy youngsters aged 0-18 who cannot live with their families have decent shelter, access to education, healthcare, food, clean water and the care and attention they need and deserve
One element vital to health and children achieving their potential is hunger, which affects the vast majority of Madagascar’s young people and wider population. Nine out of ten Malagasy people live on or below the global poverty baseline (£2.22 per day) and most miss at least one meal per day.
This poses a serious risk to health, as well as preventing children from concentrating at school. So, we work to reduce that risk and tackle that obstacle to children enjoying, and thriving at, school.
In the last year, we provided 321,464 meals to children through our CfF programme, including providing 645 children in shelters with all three of their three meals a day. EfL in the last year developed school canteens in ten schools, which serve 2,917 children each day – in some cases the main meal those young people eat.
Another challenge to health is lack of access to clean water.
In far too many cases, Malagasy children are forced to rely on water which is unclean and carries disease. The resulting illness can prevent young people from being able to focus on their education, and can be a serious obstacle to them reaching their potential and achieving what they are capable of, up to and including seriously impacting and even ending their lives.
That’s why we have installed water points and provided hygiene training to 2,917 children and 802 adults at nine schools under Education for Life, and to 1,695 children in eight shelters and day centres through CfF, in the last year alone.
One example of Education for Life working to ensure Malagasy children have clean water is at Ambohijafy II primary school.
We have installed a water point at the school, providing easily accessible clean water for its 490 pupils and 11 teachers, reducing the risk of ill-health, enabling them to focus on their education and enjoying their childhoods, and freeing them from another challenge to their standard of living now and in future years.
Along with the water point, other health and hygiene-focused activities have included distributing hygiene kits containing sanitary pads, toothbrushes and toothpaste to seventh grade girls, and raising awareness among all students about good hygiene practices, including washing hands with soap at key times.
Eighth grade student Jaona Rakoto, aged 10, explained: ‘Before, I didn’t know how to wash my hands all the time, especially after going to the bathroom.
‘Now, thanks to the hygiene education I learned at school, it has become a habit for me and my family because I forced my parents to set up a handwashing station at home so that we can wash our hands at home as well as at school.’
We know our programmes work. Yet the need in Madagascar is huge.
With your help, we can now reach even more schools with training for teachers, school kits and technology for staff and students, infrastructure improvements, clean, affordable energy, food and clean water.
And we can continue our work with Malagasy partners ensuring young people separated from their families are treated with dignity, kindness and respect, and helped into education and to grow into healthy, responsible adults who advance and improve all aspects of their communities.
Thanks to you, we can increase our work with Malagasy partners and communities to improve the lives and outlooks of even more children, young people, and the communities of which they are part. Thank you!
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