(English) Reading for the Future: books change lives

Miala tsiny fa tsy mbola misy amin’ny teny malagasy ity lahatsoratra ity.

‘Thanks to books, I have weaved a better future.’

Elina Miorantsoa

An MfM-sponsored school library programme is helping adults improve their incomes, and transform their lives.

Money for Madagascar’s Education for Life programme works, through local organisations in Madagascar, to help young people access and gain the most from their education: as is their right and as they deserve.

In doing so, we are working also to deliver the best for those children’s communities, as well-educated, engaged young people will improve the lives of all around them.

But the programme also focuses on helping the communities’ adults, including to improve their incomes.

In part, this is to help the children: lack of access to food hugely impacts Malagasy children’s health, with 50 per cent of Madagascar’s children suffering stunting due to malnutrition, four in ten do not complete primary school, and one in ten do not reach their tenth birthday due to hunger and related health issues. Even those who can attend school cannot be expected to fulfil their potential if they are continually distracted by hunger.

And of course it is also because adults, too, have a right to access food and escape hunger, and in the world’s fourth-poorest country, where 79.9 per cent of people live on £1.73 per day – the global poverty baseline – or less, it is vital to help ensure that people are able to use their skills, drive and innovation to lift themselves and those around them, from poverty.

The EPP (Primary School) Fonenana, 40km from Malagasy capital Antananarivo, in the Itasy region, has been part of our Education for Life programme since 2020.

The school’s 495 students (252 girls, 243 boys), have seen their school environment transformed through work by our partners the Voahary Maintso Association (AVM).

These include:

• water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) awareness-raising

• a school canteen during the lean season

• teacher training

• the school environment’s beautification

• nutrition training

• parents’ literacy training

• a school garden and a library open to students, teachers and parents

• training for parents in agroecology, market gardening, vermicomposting and tree nursery creation and care

And the school’s library has been helping adults to learn new skills, and through their efforts and innovation, increase their – and their families’ – incomes and food.

Elina Omega Miorantsoa, 28, is a mother of three children who attend EPP Fonenana.

She said: ‘I knew almost nothing with my hands. Today, I’m a seamstress.

‘The 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.’

Today, Elina makes children’s hats, shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, curtains, pillowcases, and many more items. Her know-how is recognised in the neighbourhood, and, impressed with what she had done and her drive to continue, the AVM offered her a sewing machine to encourage her to develop her business.

She said: ‘I sell my creations at affordable prices: a skirt between 4,000 and 6,000 Ar, {67 pence to £1} a simple dress between 7,000 and 10,000 Ar, an apron or a shirt for 5,000 Ar. My main customers are the parents of students, my neighbours, and members of our church.’

Through this work, Elina now earns about 60,000 Ar. per week. Though modest, this income has transformed her and her family’s daily lives.

She explained: ‘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.’

Nor does Elina plan to stop here.

She explained: ‘My next challenge? Read books about cooking and baking. I would like, one day, to open a small business at home to supplement our income.

‘Thank you to AVM and Money for Madagascar for thinking of us, the parents. Thanks to the library and training, we have acquired concrete skills. These books have changed our lives. They gave us confidence, know-how and dignity.’