AMBONDROMIFEHY LITTLE SAPPHIRES SCHOOL, MADAGASCAR.
The tiny nursery school that TWOAT has funded in northern Madagascar since it opened in 2011 had grown from 28 children then, to 40 in the school year 2022-23, by which time it was accommodating not only nursery but also the first 4 years of primary education. Primary teaching had been added at the request of parents who were very pleased with the care and teaching their young children were receiving at Les Petits Saphirs School. The reputation of Les Petits Saphirs spread within the mining village of Ambondromifehy and the number of children taught in 2023-24 jumped to 76. By great good fortune this coincided with our good friends at St Peter’s Church in Walton committing to bolster TWOAT’s support for Les Petits Saphirs by a regular £2,000pa. Both TWOAT and the school are very grateful. Now, at the start of the 2024-25 school year, enrolment has doubled again to 161. The Mothers’ Union in Madagascar, which runs the school, is hiring another teacher, is organising more furniture and equipment and is adding new classrooms. TWOAT is helping them to revise their budget to cope with the sudden increase in the valuable work they doing to enable the young children of this poor mining area to grow and develop.
2023
Our contact is Laurette Totomarovario, who holds a senior position with the Mothers’ Union in Northern Madagascar. The project is in the small mining village of Ambondomifehy. In 2010 TWOAT donated funds to complete a fresh water well for the village. After this the MU developed a plan to create a nursery school at the site so that pre-school children no longer had to go to the mines with their parents. TWOAT has helped to fund the school ever since. Currently TWOAT provides the majority of the financial support for the two years of nursery plus four further years of primary schooling, the latter added at the request of parents as they were so pleased with the nursery provision. The combined school currently teaches about 40 children as well as ensuring that they have a nutritious meal every school day. We described earlier in this bulletin how the school’s needs for funds had risen (now £4,800 /year). We are delighted to report that St Peter’s in Walton have committed to providing nearly half this sum on an ongoing basis.
In a previous report we told you how one of the teacher’s children, Montesque, had been hit and badly injured by a coach so he had to be brought into class on a mattress. We sent funds to pay for his hospital treatment and he is now fully recovered
2022
TWOAT has supported this project since 2010, initially funding a fresh water well for the mining village of Ambondromifehy. With the well in operation, the local Mothers’ Union was able to start a Nursery School so working parents did not have to take young children to the mining area. The Nursery School was so successful that parents asked for it to continue into primary years and it now extends to primary year 4. 35 children in Ambondromifehy are now benefitting from the schooling and some of the children who started in 2011 have now reached senior school, one of them being rated 2 years ahead of her age group!
TWOAT gets frequent feedback on the school’s achievements and difficulties. After COVID and severe storms in 2020-21, they are now facing the world-wide energy crisis, which has doubled the cost of fuel and food for them this year. In a ‘normal’ year the school costs about £5,700 pa to run, a rate of just £160/child. They can usually raise one-third from parents, with TWOAT supporting two-thirds (in 2021-22 we sent £3,800). But much higher living costs now means they fear that many more parents will not be able to afford school and lunch fees. Thus TWOAT may have to increase the support it offers to allow the school to continue providing the education, food and care that the parents and children so value.