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The #MadagascarInMay Blog

The #MadagascarInMay Blog

During my recent trip to Madagascar I had the opportunity to visit 16 rural schools. Having trained as a teacher I’ve always loved visiting schools, meeting pupils and chatting with other teachers.

We visited a range of schools including new builds and old builds, primary and post-primary. Whilst the structures and resources varied greatly at each school, every school community consistently provided a warm Malagasy welcome.

Adsum has invested in sustainable education projects in Madagascar since 2011. We focus on this area as we believe that the provision of quality education is one tool to help end extreme poverty in a country where almost 80% of the population live below the international poverty line. (World Bank April 2018).

Initially Adsum worked on tackling the problem of poor educational access by investing in the construction of school buildings, latrines and water points. However, our work in education has evolved over the years. (I’ll tell you more about this later!)

We believe that the greatest improvements in education will come from strategically targeting vulnerable communities – those where children’s access to education is most challenging. (This explains why we spent hours in the jeep daily during our trip as the schools were so difficult to access – some only by foot.  See below our route to Atsimombohitra Primary)

journey to andakana.JPG

Despite being well briefed, I didn’t fully appreciate the enormity of the educational issues and the great inequities within the Malagasy school system until I crossed the threshold of the first school we visited.

It became evident very quickly that although Madagascar is a stunning country with exquisite landscape it’s a country facing immense challenges.

I hope my blog posts over the coming days gives a flavour of my school visits in Madagascar and a little insight to my core takeaways. #MadagascarInMay

mangarano welcome 3.JPG

Author: Úna Kelly

Please note that the above observations are based upon schools we visited during our trip and/or schools that we partner with throughout the year.

See more photos on our trip to Madagascar by following the handle #MadagascarInMay on our Twitter account.

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