Construct Community Outreach Center, SW Madagascar

This past week, in the sprit of Madagascar's national day of democracy and peace, the Ho Avy Association and it's partners from the Universita Degli Studi di Torino in Italy, the European Union, GERP Groupe d'Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar and Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots program in Antananarivo donated 78 solar ovens and 22 fuel efficient wood-burning stoves to the Ranobe community and community center. ADES, a non-profit in Toliara that builds the ovens helped with the two days of distributing and training at the community center.

Information sessions where held at the community center informing people about the health benefits of this technology, especially for women and children who cook on fire and the time saved for women who harvest wood for cooking fuel. After distribution a door-to-door follow-up has been made to instruct in the correct usage of the materials, on-going training and fundraising to implement more of these materials will be headed by Roots and Shoots and Ho Avy.

Needless to say the villagers were very excited about receiving these materials, several women commented how they liked the idea of this 'cleaner technology' and the men were impressed at the rate of combustion with the fuel efficient wood-burning stoves. The local community expressed a lot of thanks for the generosity from the sponsors, aware the materials could have easily been donated to another community in Madagascar.

While these materials may not be the 'silver-bullet' to solving all of Ranobe's environmental pressures the action is an important incremental step, gaining the confidence of the villagers by trying to include everyone in some meaningful way. Progress with anything new may be slow here but the direct connection to Ranobe's community has been one of the most important criteria for being able to make any impact on the rugged conservation and development landscape in S.W. Madagascar. 

As mentioned in our last update solar panels have been donated to the community center and will be installed as soon as Ho Avy can raise the funds to buy materials to complete the installation and can hire a permanent staff to manage the centers activities.

In addition, several parallel projects for the center are being developed, including a community health and family planning project as well as a improved agriculture and carbon project. All with the intention of achieving Ho Avy's long-term vision, to link the well-being of people with the value of the unique environment. However, only with the passage of time has it been possible to gain the necessary experience to adapt these ideas to the complexity of the realities in S.W. Madagascar.

We thank you for bearing with Ho Avy through its metamorphosis, your on going support is hugely appreciated by everyone here in Madagascar and we will be sure to keep you updated as projects continue to develop around the community center.