Antanimarina PreSchool
inauguration: March 15, 2024 🎉

Cost

One Classroom 34 508 050 Ariary (6 902 £)

Classroom furniture;  50 small chairs, 10 small tables, 1 teacher’s desk and chair,1 cupboard and bookshelves (locally made) : 8,198,810 Ariary (1640 £)

 

TOTAL COST: 42,706,860 Ariary (8,542 £)

BRIEF PROJECT OUTLINE:

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Rationale: 

Like most villages in rural areas, Antanimarina is a deprived and very poor community. The majority of people are engaged in farming and cattle raising, and live in harsh and primitive condition – reflecting the extreme poverty that exists throughout Madagascar. 

 

Typical of most villages in rural areas, children access the school on foot - some of them travelling a considerable distance.  Due to extreme poverty  many have nothing to eat or drink between leaving home and returning from school several hours later. 70% of the 203 primary school children who attend this school live up to 1,5 kms away in Ambohikely; Ambanivato and Antamboho.  

 

Antanimarina Primary School was built in 1977 with two classrooms using funds raised by members of the Association of Parents and Teachers.  Due to the steadily increasing number of pupils and the shortage of space the Ministry of Education, through the World Bank funded programme CRESED 2, built an additional classroom in 1982. Two other very small classrooms were added in 2004 , which are now in poor condition, having been badly damaged by a cyclone.

 

The school has seven teachers,  two civil servants including the head teacher, whose salaries are paid by the  Ministry of Education.  Five others, recruited locally, are paid partly in cash and in kind, (sacks of rice) by the Association of Parents of children who attend the school.

 

Most schools in Madagascar have lessons only in the morning. But the limited space available at Antanimarina means that half attend in the morning, and the rest in the afternoon, which is unsatisfactory. When rain is forecast, usually in the afternoon, the teachers are obliged to close the school and send the children home. Teachers,  and especially parents,  are fearful for their children’s safety during the rainy/cyclone season when violent and life threatening thunderstorms are frequent.  This situation will continue to be a problem in October 2024 at the start of the next school year when at least fifty  pre-school  children are expected to register to attend this school.

 

The current pre-school classroom, with 52 pupils, was built in 2010, also with funds raised in the community by the  Association of Parents and teachers. It is badly over-crowded and uncomfortably hot during the summer months due to the corrugated iron roof, poor ventilation and small windows. There are not enough school benches to accommodate all the children, and most have to sit and do their school work on the floor.   The classroom has no ceiling,  and when it rains the noise is deafening.

 

The teachers have appealed to MDF to find a source of funds to build and furnish a larger pre-school classroom to provide better, more spacious facilities for the children,  and increase capacity to accommodate the same number, or possibly more, at the start of the next school year.