| Last week, the World Food Programme’s Chief David Beasley described Madagascar’s humanitarian crisis as ‘enough to bring even the most hardened humanitarian to tears’. The team members leading SEED's emergency response are not usually humanitarian workers, but for the past six months they have and continue to be, assisting those suffering through the crisis affecting their home region. The pain of people experiencing these extreme food shortages is felt by all here, testament not only to the value of community in Malagasy culture but also indicative of how widespread this disaster has become. Sadly, the situation is set to worsen still. As such, SEED hopes to continue its Food Distribution to respond to the growing need for urgent humanitarian assistance in Madagascar’s southern region. Along with the increasing need for emergency food, is the ever-present need for improved sanitation facilities and more schools in Madagascar’s Anosy region. As we work towards these goals, this month we celebrated the opening of Vatambe Primary School and some exciting end results from SEED’s project with UNICEF. | | Emil, SEED's Data Collector, measuring Mariane's arm to check for malnutrition. Photo: Daniel Wood | | | Last week, SEED’s team reported seeing people cycling for a whole day to buy a bunch of bananas and then cycling a whole day back again, after being unable to find any food near their home town. All food is now a high-value commodity in Madagascar’s southern regions, with everyday staples such as beans double their usual price, meaning those across towns and cities are now too facing worsening hunger. In rural areas, where food has been scarce for months, ash mixed with tamarind is all many people have to fill their stomachs. These powerful testimonies from the SEED team were published by 'Metro' today. SEED’s initial round of food distribution was effective with upper-arm measurements, taken from children diagnosed with moderate-acute malnutrition, showing encouraging weight gain as a result of receiving emergency food from SEED. The stories of Narovana, Haova, and Vaha Julie, three women living at the centre of this crisis, give an insight into how the expansion of this emergency response is vital, as the region approaches its most severe lean season to date. | | | | | School children at Vatambe Primary School's Opening Ceremony. Photo: Lomba Hasoavana | | "We want to go to school to learn!" | Those were the words sung by Vatambe’s pupils at its opening ceremony earlier this month. After ten months of hard work by SEED’s construction team, it was finally time to unveil the new school to the public! As well as broken bridges and the unpredictability of COVID-19 restrictions, the severity of the region’s drought made the build itself unexpectedly difficult, with on-site water so scarce that the team had to make 3-5 30 minute trips to collect water each day. Despite this, the team persevered and completed the build against all odds. SEED constructed three fully-furnished classrooms with repairs to one other, one rainwater harvesting system, two gender-segregated latrines, one menstrual hygiene management facility, and two handwashing stations, enabling 230 students to attend school full-time annually! With special thanks to Scintilla, Teneo, and the State of Guernsey Overseas Aid and Development Commission for its funding of this work. | | | | Newly-built latrine in Ivahona, Anosy region. Photo: SEED's Rural WASH Team | | 185,000 people reached through our Rural Wash Project | As the first 16-month stage of our partnership with UNICEF comes to an end, SEED wishes to share some exciting results from our Rural Wash Project, which aims to promote improved access to sanitation facilities and eradicate open defecation in southern Madagascar. By working together with communities, we have been able to build action plans to reach water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) goals best suited for them. We have built 22,679 safe latrines, delivered 47,093 handwashing training sessions and, through these activities, have decreased open defecation by 40% across 12 districts. Our WASH work has extended beyond home settings too, by training teachers and healthcare workers on better menstrual hygiene management and to implement improved WASH facilities in schools and health centres. SEED believes that the best projects should have benefits which last a lifetime (and beyond!), so we have also trained 17 masons in building latrines, and 17 seamstresses to make reusable menstrual hygiene pads. In this exciting new phase of the project, these local artisans have now been officially certified in entrepreneurship too!
By strengthening WASH systems across Madagascar, SEED continues to work towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 to ‘Ensure clean access to water and sanitation for all’. With thanks to UNICEF Madagascar for its partnership and funding of this project. | | | Monthly Mini Malagasy Language Lesson with Lima, SEED's Translator/Language Expert ‘Izay mitambatra vato, izay misaraka fasika’ - together we are strong and powerful and can achieve great things. | | | This email was sent to friend@example.com | © SEED Madagascar. All rights reserved. |
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