A dedicated micro credit fund for rural Madagascar

Zahana relies heavily on education to facilitate the implementation of development activities in its areas of intervention. With this in mind, Zahana has launched a concerted action with the community to ensure the financial survival of an existing school in the village of Tsaramandroso. (This is the 3rd village where Zahana carries out its activities.) Despite a very successful school, with high student attendance, it is having difficulty paying the teachers’ salaries.

Building on existing efforts, Zahana made a suggestion to overcome the financial difficulties the school is facing: A pastry oven to generate money for the school. Equipment and materials for the bakery were brought by Zahana based on recommendation from the pastry teachers form the capital. Zahana gave all these things to the school to support them to continue with paying the teachers.

A pastry oven that can burn home-made bio-charcoal briquettes was especially designed by Richard. Richard is the inventor and the brain behind our improved cookstove model. The same model our team taught how to make in 10 villages so far. He experimented with different design ideas, because baking is very different from cooking food like rice or soup. A cookstove needs a fire with charcoal or other biomass directly under the cooking pot.  Baking needs heat all around the pastry to bake and it needs to be bigger to bake more things at the same time. He spent a week in the village and with the help of local volunteers built and improved his pastry oven right there. Trying and improving and experimenting he learned that we need heat, or glowing charcoal on top and in the bottom of the oven to get the best heat to bake.

A 4-day workshop was organized in this direction with the supervision of 2 pastry specialists that joined us for the workshop from the capital. They brought all the equipment and baking materials and their know-how needed for the workshop.

The goal of a pastry training for students and parents of our students was to create a source of short-cycle income to support the school.  This approach is in line with the priorities of Zahana. The idea was well received.

From the beginning it was agreed that the products should be within the reach of the purchasing power of the people living in villages in the area.

The initial idea was designed to support the school. However, women from surrounding villages were very interested in attending the training as well on their own, in order to learn a skill that can improve their family’s budget.

During the workshop, followed by practice, the participants made brioches, croissants and pizza to their delight.

60 attended the pastry class with some people from different villages like Ambatomitsangana, Ambohibary. The news has been spread so we couldn’t stop these people from attending as they were invited by the local pastor of the village. The oven built by Richard worked even for the first test.

The second day we asked them to use the solar oven to see if it works as well. Based on the experience, the solar is good to bake but we need the artisanal oven to brown the brioches. Pizza was the amazing news - as it was the first time for them to have it. The same day a church from another village already made the order for 120 pizza for a meeting they are organizing soon. The croissant looks like the head of zebu (barea) and they called it Mofo Barea. They will also sell the brioches in the weekly markets nearby Tuesdays and Fridays. They mastered the way to make brioche, croissant, pizza and as a bonus crepe stuffed with fruits like banana and peanuts.

After this successful workshop, the school is ready to receive orders now. Having learned a lot from this experience, Zahana will continue the adventure with one of the pastry chefs at a more advanced level.