Back in 2006 fruit trees, especially mangos, were planted in the very first community-wide tree panting event. The first big community-building event of Zahana was our attempt to introduce the idea of planting trees to rice farmers. Fruit trees, with their dual use of being more than ‘just’ firewood, was an integral strategy for our long-term reforestation efforts.
Our teacher Mprany has adopted this idea full steam and planted (as we reported earlier) quite a few mango trees around ‘his’ schoolyard. This year the mango harvest coincided with the Xmas celebrations in the school. So in conjunction with Santa’s annual visits, our students harvested mangoes to share the bounty with the community.
We think that these amazing pictures do indeed speak for themselves.
Happy Holidays and a great New Year!
Ihanta and Markus
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This is a cross-posted report about Zahana's Health Center. Like our reforestation project, the impact of our Health Center in the village of Fiadanana reaches far beyond the boundaries of our villages. People from the surrounding villages come to seek medical help from our paramedic. Some even explicitly expressed that they prefer coming here than walking to the only hospital in the big town of Tsiroanomandidy.
Having a refrigerator is a major step towards modernization and reliable health care delivery in our Health Center. Our founder, Dr. Ihanta writes: “We need a refrigerator to store vaccines as 100% of kids must be immunized and some medicines for hemorrhage post partum have to be stored in a refrigerator as well. Our center is a CARMMA which means it is designated by the Ministry of Health as a specialized health facility to accelerate the reduction of maternal and child mortality rate. We are very proud to be one of the currently 19 designated CARMMA centers in Madagascar. Now that we have found a paramedic that is dedicated to the village we look forward to a bright future for our health center. It is important to note that in all other CARMMA in the country the paramedic or midwifes are female, with the only exception of our Health Center. Since our paramedic had earned the trust of our esteemed Healer Dadaleva the community accepted our paramedic in his new role as the sole health care provider whole heartedly.”
There is one drawback though. Our Health Center currently has two rooms. One room is dedicated to giving birth and possibly stay there postpartum to recover. One room has a bed for people who need to be hospitalized overnight or stay for a few days for observation. In addition there is a small room, or better a broom closet, to store medical supplies and medicines. Because space is limited the only space available for the refrigerator is in the “birth” room. The refrigerator is powered by kerosene and is smelly and noisy. This is a less then ideal situation that we hope to address with the community’s request to enlarge the Health Center. We are currently also on a waiting list for a solar refrigerator from UNICEF that would greatly reduce cost and the need of kerosene and indoor pollution.
Happy Holidays – Ihanta and Markus
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Zahana's 10th anniversary was an excellent reason for festivities in the village and an opportunity to celebrate our achievements with the community.
The school they built in 2006 to house students is now in its 10th year. Some of our first students are now parents. Two of them attend agricultural school. The students had their own celebration at their school to show its importance in the village.
The communal water system is running continuously, providing clean safe drinking water for over a 1000 people. This fact alone is amazing. It shows or even proves that our participatory approach really works. It is a sad fact that most development built water systems don't function longer than two years, as pointed out in an excellent TED Talk. But if a community comes together and tackles their own issues, a water system can run continuously for over a decade.
Our reforestation project is by now ‘just’ half a decade old, and a ‘youngling’. It is the most visible of all projects and considered by most in the village to be our biggest success (after water and schooling, which is taken for granted already). We recently celebrated “the most trees planted”, which was covered in detail in an earlier project report.
As usual at such events, there were speeches and traditional dances. Especially our teacher enjoyed the opportunity of having a microphone and therefore the undivided attention of the entire community. (Although we were told that many wished there might've been a stricter time limit on the length of speeches...)
For the 10th Year celebration we had been joined by other important health professionals. You see all of them in the photo 6 with the numbers.
1- Dr. Shila, MD
2- Dr. Roccali, MD, Director of Regional Health.
3- Dr. Marguerite, Cardiologist, Zahana founding board member.
4- Dr. Claudine, MD, Office of the Director General of Health
5- "Santa", Office of the Director General of Health and big Zahana supporter who ‘adopted’ the villages
6- Medical Inspector for Tsiroanomandidy (the next town)
7- Patric, Driver, Office of the Director General of Health
8- Theo, Janitor
9- Dr. Ramihantaniarivo, MD, Founder of Zahana and Director General of Health (taking the photo)
You may notice that Theo the janitor has joined the team. This speaks for the uniqueness of the Zahana's approach, since it is in no way 'usual' to give a janitor the opportunity to join a site visit, or the driver to leave the car and join the festivities.
But now to another celebration: GlobalGiving is offering a 50% match on donations made on GivingTuesday Nov. 29. This time GlobalGiving will match until the donations have reached 1 million dollars an amount that far exceeds all prior matching days. If you feel inclined to give to our project, please consider to do so on November 29 and you give 50% more! (Please keep in mind Nov 29 means midnight to midnight EST, where GlobalGiving is based).
Ihanta and Markus
In conjunction with the 10-year celebration, Zahana gave out rewards for individual reforestation successes. This time the award was for the most trees planted by an individual that survived the last 3 years.
Yes, it has indeed been 10 years since Zahana built the school and the clean water system in the village of Fiarenana. The fact alone that our communal water system, built by and with the community is still working well and running, is cause for celebration. (See Participatory Development Explained on our website).
The idea behind reforestation rewards:
Over the years Zahana emphasized that not the mere number of trees planted, but the number of trees that literally took root, survived and are growing, is what really counts in successful reforestation. Everybody who has ever even attempted to garden, knows all to well that seeds or even seedlings in the ground does not automatically mean a successful plant or harvest. For us the proof is not in the pudding, but in the photos you can see in our reforestation project reports over the years.
Being acknowledged in public with a ceremony is a great honor for the villagers. This honor is independent from social standing or rank within the community and reflects a great personal achievement. The presence of a reporter from the local TV station in the closest town of Tsiroanomandidy (the one with the video camera in the photos) added gravitas to the award ceremony. The three most successful tree planters were awarded:
The First prize: A Solar cooker. Once again our master gardener Jean won this award
The Second prize: A rocket cook stove (highly efficient wood fired cooker) was awarded to a woman from the community.
The Third prize went to another man named “Bary” (a very common name in Madagascar)
All three finalists got basic necessities that are very valuable in the rural village: a new plastic bucket to carry water, a new plastic tub to wash clothes, a new plastic cup with handle to bail water, coffee, sugar, salt and soap.
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“Dadaleva, the tradipractioner (traditional practitioner), passed away in the night of 8 July 2016. Having permission and blessing from his family we went through a simple Zahana celebration a months later (see the photos). The celebration was held in his house. Even he himself didn’t know his own age, and he used to say “more than 60” for the last two decades. But I think he was older than my mother who passed away at 89 a few years ago, so he must have been way over 90 years old. The Famadihana, a traditional Malagasy funeral service was held in the village itself with his entire extended family” [A big event when Malagasies wrap again the bones of their deceased loved one with new shrouds] Dr. Ihanta
Lovingly referred to as the ‘father of the village” by our founder Dr. Ihanta, Dadaleva was not only the heart and soul of the village but also our biggest Zahana supporter. Our work would not have been possible without his unwavering support and blessing from day one, way back in 1998 when Zahana was founded. In 2005 he donated the land on which Zahana’s first school still stands. He was an amazing traditional healer whose skill and ability was sought after from people hundreds of miles away. It was an open secret that when Western doctors in the area “ran out of options” they recommended to see Dadaleva, because if he could not help, nobody could.
We will dearly miss this amazing healer and humble wonderful human being. He has been in many photos over the years, since he was pivotal for many events. Always discretely in the background shying away from the camera, you see him always wearing the traditional Malagasy lamba, regardless of the occasion.
Jeannette and Markus
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