Our humanitarian aid programs aim to address the needs of the people living next to lemur habitat. Our partner villages want to have increased food security, for their children to attend school, and to be able to generate their own income. We focus on women and aim to support the small-scale development that they want.
Barefoot College madagascar, Efoetse
In September of 2021, partnered with the Malagasy Ministry of Energy and Hydrocarbons, Rural Electricity Development Agency, and the Barefoot College Madagascar to bring solar energy and light to the village of Efoetse! The Barefoot College is a remarkable program which trains grandmothers of vulnerable rural villages to be solar engineers and agents of change in their communities.
Efoetse is the nearest village to Tsimanampesotse National Park, where we conduct long-term research on ring-tailed lemurs. Our conservation strategy for these lemurs and their habitat includes working with local people on small-scale sustainable development programs, which improve livelihoods and decrease the need to extract forest resources for subsistence. Our four solar engineer trainees will begin in January, 2022. We are grateful for the support of the Oak Foundation and the Population Connection for their support of our work in this community. |
La Marmaille Primary School, mangily
,Lemur Love has been supporting La Marmaille for several years, because we appreciate their inclusion of environmentalism in curriculum. We supported construction of a building, provided over 20000 lunches for students, and paid school fees for families in need. We aim to facilitate entrepreneurial training for the newly formed women's association formed by La Marmaille student's mothers.
La Marmaille students need:
La Marmaille is a French-language primary school located in southwestern Madagascar (30 km north of Toliara). This school, which has 400 students in attendance, was started by Madame Angellia Razanadrainy. Previously, Mdm. Razanadrainy was a librarian at a local non-profit organization, but she became frustrated with the low levels of literacy in local children. Moreover, she recognized that students who were proficient in French were able to carry on studies past the primary level (available only in Toliara), and that this enables them to have better job prospects in future. Thus, Mdm. Razanadrainy undertook a big project- starting her own primary school in Mangily, where children learn to read in both Malagasy and French!
In addition to both local languages, the students at Marmaille learn about environmentalism, conservation of nature and the importance of endemic wildlife- topics that are generally not covered in school curriculum in Madagascar.
COVID-19, and the associated loss of tourism, have significantly impacted local people's abilities to earn income. Many of the parents of La Marmaille students were formerly employed by tourism and adjacent industries. Approximately 3/4 (n=300) of the families of La Marmaille students cannot afford monthly school fees and are food insecure.
We are grateful for Sibylle Westbrook's contributions to this program and for the generous support of private donors.
La Marmaille students need:
- school fee sponsors (approximately $4 USD per month, per student)
- lunch sponsors (approximately $15 USD per month, per student). We would ideally like to find an organization to adopt feeding all students during the school year
- support of La Marmaille's most vulnerable families (approximately $30 USD per month, per family)
La Marmaille is a French-language primary school located in southwestern Madagascar (30 km north of Toliara). This school, which has 400 students in attendance, was started by Madame Angellia Razanadrainy. Previously, Mdm. Razanadrainy was a librarian at a local non-profit organization, but she became frustrated with the low levels of literacy in local children. Moreover, she recognized that students who were proficient in French were able to carry on studies past the primary level (available only in Toliara), and that this enables them to have better job prospects in future. Thus, Mdm. Razanadrainy undertook a big project- starting her own primary school in Mangily, where children learn to read in both Malagasy and French!
In addition to both local languages, the students at Marmaille learn about environmentalism, conservation of nature and the importance of endemic wildlife- topics that are generally not covered in school curriculum in Madagascar.
COVID-19, and the associated loss of tourism, have significantly impacted local people's abilities to earn income. Many of the parents of La Marmaille students were formerly employed by tourism and adjacent industries. Approximately 3/4 (n=300) of the families of La Marmaille students cannot afford monthly school fees and are food insecure.
We are grateful for Sibylle Westbrook's contributions to this program and for the generous support of private donors.
Our Humanitarian Development programs address several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 including: no poverty (SDG 1), zero hunger (SDG 2), quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), affordable clean energy (SDG 7), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), and life on land (SDG 15), and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).