In 2011, our Operations Director, James Hall, took a career break and amongst other activities, spent 3 months working in Madagascar on a conservation and education project with UK based charity SEED Madagascar. Following his return to Teneo, James was keen to continue supporting the area and a renovation project was put to us, which we then carried out in late 2011.
Madagascar is one of the most impoverished and least developed countries in the world and the people of the Anosy region in the south east are among the poorest in the country; over 90% of the population live below the international poverty line of $1.25 [80p] per day, suffering some of the highest levels of child mortality (40%) and illiteracy (80%).
With ongoing state instability since a coup in 2009, national investment in education had dropped by 82%, massively impacting the quality of education available to the island’s children, who constituted some 42% of the population. These issues were clearly visible in Tsialagna, an isolated village in the Anosy mountain chain with a population dependent on the traditional livelihood of farming rice and cassava, and where as many as 77% of school-aged children had not been attending school.
This project assisted the community of Tsialagna by repairing their primary school, resulting in a strong refurbished building that would serve the community for years to come.
In October 2012, SEED Madagascar’s construction team sourced locally available materials and transported them to the remote rural village. Construction commenced in November with the team replacing damaged areas and giving the school a first layer of paint. Attention was then focused on constructing a veranda with a roof, replacing damaged tin-roofing and giving the whole building a second layer of paint.
Reconstruction of the school begins
The refurbishment work continues
