Support Malagasy Travel Community

Dear donor,

Please accept our gratitude for your contribution of $82, or 287.000Ariary in local currency to the project #44848 to help tourism community. With your generosity, we have been able to purchase organic and 100% natural essential oils from one of our sites in Vatovavy Fitovinany. Your donation had double impact: (1) supported tourism community as we purchased locally (2) helped treated those little daily ailments of 2020 winter season.

Malagasy winter occurs between May until July. Due to the lockdown, most of our beneficiaries living in urban areas spent about 70% of their time indoors. Most of the time they were breathing were in all types of indoor and outdoor pollution. Making them more vulnerable to catch COVID-19. Though essential oils are not accessible to vulnerable people due to their price, they are considered valuable during the cold months.

We have listed few reasons why household must-have essential oils for a healthy winter especially this year with this unprecedented pandemic:

• They purify stale indoor air with their uplifting scents to have mood-boosting. They could help clean and deodorize the air
• They have clarifying qualities that are reputed to reduce the discomforts of congestion and body aches especially for our senior beneficiaries
• They helped treated those little daily ailments last winter
• Most of the essential oils used were loaded with strong antiseptic properties. It enabled our beneficiaries to disinfect any surface by removing dirt and stain

We have borrowed few essential oil precautions:

• Do not apply essential oils directly to the skin. Always use a carrier oil and blend before application
• If you live in the same space as a pregnant or breastfeeding woman, you should not use any essential oil. It is still unknown how exactly essential oils can affect pregnant women, so it is best to avoid using them during pregnancy to be safe
• You also should not use essential oils on children, especially those younger than seven years old. Essential oils can be quite powerful, and it is possible that children have not yet developed a resistance to the more intense effects

We reiterate our gratitude for making it possible to create a more resilient workforce. Please see as attached a picture of our capacity building recipients seeing the process about how those essential oils were produced. Stay safe!

Warm regards,

Halt Poverty team