We believe that women are extremely important in conservation. We are supporting Malagasy women achieve goals that they deem important, in order to forward conservation.
Mirindrasoa Women's Association
Mirindrasoa's welcome song to Lemur Love
he Mirindrasoa Women’s Association of Efoetse (village neighboring Tsimanampesotse National Park) was formed in 2015 with the goal of bringing together friends and also increasing the ability to earn income through small-scale business endeavors. In 2016 Lemur Love began supporting Mirindrasoa. Women from the association expressed concerns over food security, particularly in the dry season, and note that they often cannot afford to take advantage of potential income generation during this time, or simple don’t have enough food for their households. With our initial investment, Mirindrasoa started a micro-loan program whereby members could take out loans to buy items and sell them at a profit, and then repay their loan with interest. This enables participants to build savings which help buffer the low food availability in the dry season, and prevents individuals from having to extract forest resources for charcoal production- something that is much more work and not considered a favorable alternative.
Since then Mirindrasoa has also built a small structure to sell items to travelers (food, bottled water, craft items, etc.) and begun small scale poultry production. In future we’d like to facilitate exchanges wherein delegates from Mirindrasoa travel to other more-developed women’s associations in Madagascar to learn about sustainable expansion.
Since then Mirindrasoa has also built a small structure to sell items to travelers (food, bottled water, craft items, etc.) and begun small scale poultry production. In future we’d like to facilitate exchanges wherein delegates from Mirindrasoa travel to other more-developed women’s associations in Madagascar to learn about sustainable expansion.
IKALA Stem
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Ikala STEM aims to empower the next generation of Malagasy women in STEM disciplines, and we are excited to help the Malagasy Chapter forward their goals through our new collaboration. Our first project will be to jointly organize and host Ikala STEM's Annual Workshop'19 (IAW19) on ‘lemur science’. This will be held in Antananarivo in June/July of 2019.
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Lemur Love is a small US-based non-profit organization (501(c)(3)) that conducts scientific research and conservation with lemurs and people in Madagascar.