| Supporting livelihoods, distributing masks, and protecting habitats |
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Thinking of buying masks for you and your family? Then our mask exchange launched last week has the answer, with beautifully patterned masks at just £5 each! Also featured this month is the completion of SEED’s biggest school to date and one of the most remote, where we delivered masks funded through our Masks for Madagascar appeal. Finally, read all about small-scale fisheries and the impact that COVID-19 is having on lobster prices in Sainte Luce and the surrounding areas. |
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Join the SEED Mask Exchange! |
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| With masks becoming ever more important, SEED has launched its mask exchange. The idea is simple - buy a fantastic, colourful print mask for £5, and SEED will use this money to support its ongoing COVID-19 response work in Madagascar. Just one mask bought online enables us to make and distribute 5 masks in Madagascar. To date we have sold almost 100 masks, and the money from sales is already being used on the ground in Madagascar. So far we have distributed over 7,000 masks to health care staff, hospitals, schools and to small market traders to keep vital services going in Madagascar. |
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Distributing masks in remote Ranomafana |
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COVID-19 has posed huge challenges to students, so SEED has been producing masks to support 22 schools to ensure that pupils in Madagascar have a safe learning environment. At SEED’s latest school build in Ranomafana, some 6 hours drive from Fort Dauphin, our team distributed 97 face masks to final year students and teachers so that they can continue lessons before this year's exams. Two weeks ago the team was proud to hand over the school to the local authority. Although the tough mountain road was once again inaccessible to the team from Fort Dauphin, our locally based WASH team stepped in and represented SEED at the ceremony. This High School, which is the only upper secondary school in an 80km radius, is now open and has three classrooms, a Headteacher’s office, toilets and a rainwater harvesting system ensuring continuous water supply. |
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The impact of COVID-19 on small-scale fisheries |
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| For the communities that Project Oratsimba supports, lobster fishing is a vitally important livelihood. Already, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused catch prices to plummet by more than 50%. The situation has become so severe that the cost of purchasing pots and other fishing gear needed to catch lobsters is almost the same as the price received for the day's catch. With infection rates from COVID-19 only beginning to rise now, the coming months are going to be hard as fishers struggle to balance the costs and rewards of their primary income. |
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