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Quick Links to Zahana's activities in Madagascar: click on any image/issue below

The community builds a school in Madagascar

Communal rice and corn storage bulding in Madagascar

Improving Cookstove technology in Madagascar

Adressing food Security in rural Madagascar

Zahana's photo gallery about rural transofmation in Madagascar

Other issues addressed by zahana in Madagascar

Zahana's latest News as of August 9, 2010:

A second gardener - working with the school in Faidanana

Solar cooker update - July 2010

Planting the school garden in Fairenana

Watch the new slide show of the opening ceremony for the school in Fiarenana

Zebu cattle in Madagascat June 27, 2010: It is certainly easier to report about the opening of a school or the planting of trees, but on a more somber note, here is the latest sad news from Madagascar.

Our village of Fiarenana was attacked for the third time by ‘dahalo’, or cattle thieves, a few weeks back. They came into the village at night, shouting loudly, throwing stones at the house and firing gun shots in the air. People huddled inside their houses in fear for their lives. They stole 11 zebu belonging to the pastor and 2 other people in the village. Our contact in the village reported on the cell phone: “The entire districts is devastated and in a state of shock, most villages have been attacked and robbed by dahalo at night, something that we have never experienced before in our area. In the village next to us a 15 year old boy was shot dead”.

Note: Zebu are cattle and prized possessions in Madagascar. Poor farmers raise cattle as a living savings account. They need at least two heads of cattle to plow their fields and pull their carriages. Zebus are an important source of milk. For centuries zebu have had great cultural significance and are vital for funerals.

Guns are very uncommon in Madagascar and nobody in the villages owns any firearms or weapons. In the past cattle thieves were very uncommon in our part of the country and armed with sticks they occasionally stole a cow or two grazing at night far away from the village, scaring and making the child watching it run away. People in Madagascar, rooted in cultural traditions, do not go outside after dark if they can avoid it. Since the situation got more volatile, many farmers have gathered all zebu inside the village at night to guard better against cattle thieves, putting them at the same time as risk of a violent attack inside their village. Fortunately for Zahana, people do not feel that they are more prone to fall prey to dahalo because of their cooperation of working with us, the ‘outsiders’.

June 24, 2010 Zahana is now on Facebook:

Zahana-Madagascar |

BONUS DAY: June 16, 2010

The GlobalGiving bonus day challenge on June 16, 2010 is over. For the first time in GlobalGiving history the matching funds were depleted before the end of the challenge. Check out the ledger board for details

May 2010: Our work continues...
Zahana is working in both villages. Our work is needed more than ever. This report by email from May 19, 2010 illustrates the impact of the economic crisis:

“The villagers got a good rice harvest this year, but what is sad is the price, they can get for it. During our last site visit the farmers complained about the price they could get for their harvest. This year they can only get of 360 Ariary per kg (less then 20 US cents per kg, or 10 cents per US pound), while it was over 600 per kg in 2009. To give you and idea what that means for them: to buy 1kg of sugar, 250 grams of salt and one small piece of soap they have to sell 10 kg of rice. This is beyond unfair, to grow that rice took almost half year, it is a way to kill the farmers and they will consider giving up planting rice at al

May 3, 2010

Thanks to GlobalGiving’s efforts Zahana was invited as a Global Action Atlas participant hosted by the prestigious National Geographic Society (yes the one with the yellow magazine!). Check out the beta version of the Global Action Atlas.

April 24, 2010, Washington DC, USA

We are grateful for the opportunity to visit GlobalGiving in Washington D.C. in April 2010 and present about our work with Zahana to the staff with a slide show and a question and answer period.

March 4, 2010: The official inauguration of the school in Fiadanana

The official opening of the school in Fiarenana was celebrated on March 4, 2010, although school already started in January after the completed teacher’s training. More

February 21, 2010: Solar cookers and solar water pasteurizes on the way to Madagascar

We wanted to update you about a very exciting development. The inventor of the blazingtube solar cooker generously offered by the end of last year to donate a large number of his innovative solar cookers and water pasteurizes to Zahana. We are very grateful, and this wonderful donation gives us the opportunity to expand the focus of our activities beyond solar cookers for the school in the future.

In January the first cookers were successfully produced in China. While we were in the process of figuring out the intricacies of shipping to Madagascar the devastating earthquake hit Haiti. With a dire need for water that is safe to drink the inventor decided to donate and ship most of the solar water pasteurizes and solar cookers to Haiti.

But since he is committed to support Zahana as well, at this very moment a few solar cookers and solar water pasteurizes are en route to Madagascar on a cargo ship. Link to a Hawaii TV newscast about the water pasteurizes.

December 27, 2009: Photos from the almost finished school in Fiareanana

December 22, 2009: the latest progress report from Fiadanana click here

Dec 2: The GlobalGiving Give More – Get More Challenge is completed. Your donations to Zahana had been matched by 30% by GlobalGiving. More click here

November 7: Zahana publishes the first newsletter using Constant Contact. This will hopefully make updates and the distribution of electronic newsletters easier (and less time consuming than formatted PDF files for us volunteers).

First week of November: The agricultural expert joined the teacher’s trainer for a one-week intensive training in crop improvements. Based on the community’s interest he will come back prior to the next rice-planting season and conduct a tailor made training about SRI (System of Rice Intensification). Although he is only able to stay one week at a time, he is committed to coming back as often as possible. He was very impressed with the community of Fiarenana’s interest in improving and diversifying their agriculture and their willingness to learn about new farming practices that abandon the traditional “we always did it this way” approach.

Hot off the digital press: Zahana and its founder Dr. Ramihanataniarivo are features in the latest issue of Malamalama the Magazine of the University of Hawai‘i (Malamalama means 'the light of knowledge' in Hawaiian). Thank you to the editors of MMalamalama to include us in their Magazine and thank you Kelli for the great article!

Sept. 15, 2009: The community in Fiarenana is building their school

Sept. 11, 2009: Pictures of the improved cook stoves in action

August 29, 2009: The community started building their school in Fiarenana with the help from Zahana.

July 9, 2009: The latest progress report for the village of Fiarenana has been posted. Read about coffee seedlings, the rice storage building and distributing mosquito nets

June 5, 2009

The progress report for the second Zahana site, the village of Fiarenana has been posted.

Congratulations to Hailee, a 9th grade student, at Spring Lake Park High School, Minnesota, for getting 5th place for her Zahana presentation in her school’s competition. More

April 29, 2009

The GlobalGiving Green Challenge was completed April 28, 2009.

Thank you! Zahana made it to 3rd place and got the $1000 bonus!

April 23, 2009

The new communal well in the village of Fiarenana is completed. To read more please click here

April 3, 2009

The GlobalGiving Green Challenge April 4 to 28, 2009

March 15, 2009

Dear friends,

Some of you read about Madagascar in the news and contacted us, so we wanted to send a short message. Thanks to email, text messaging and Skype we have been in constant contact with our partners in Madagascar and they are fine. One thing becomes obvious: we have to increase our efforts in rural participatory development and education.

Zahana has been focusing on making village life more attractive and livable so people don't have to leave their village in the first place in search of a better life. This can be done for example by providing development partnerships to built access to clean water or a school for their children.

Almost a decade back Madagascar experienced a very tumultuous political situation and as a result many people fled the cities in search of safety in countryside. In the case of the village of Fiadanana, Zahana's pilot village, its population increased by 20% and after the political situation stabilized most of the newcomers decided to stay, since they discovered the advantages of the rural over the city life.

We encourage you to frequent your trusted news sources for more information. We find use a UK website since it lists many languages as links.

Please write to us directly if you want more information.

Jeannette and Markus

February 2009

But despite the disturbing news out participatory development efforts in two villages in Madagascar continue.

Based on the ties established with the community of Fiarenana in October 2008 a formal meeting was held in February 2009.

To read more about the meeting and Fiarenana please click here

December 2008

Zahana has been providing a Mofo Gasy every day for each student since August 2008. In December it was decided to add soup once a week to improve the protein intake of the children. To Zahana's delight the parent decided that besides a soup with beans they need to add rice or cassava to make it more palatable and are contributing this as their share. Soup is currently served to one group on Mondays and the second on Tuesdays.

December 5, 2008

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