ZAHANA
Rural Participatory Development in Madagascar

 

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NEWS AND UPDATES

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This page will tell you about the latest developments of the work in Fiadanana. We will update this page regularly as the villagers tackle their priorities and implement solutions.

Please see/read the pages ‘Where do we work?’ to better understand the context of this web page.

 

Thank you for your support!

What we have accomplished so far:

HEALTH

The construction for the permanent water system is accomplished! For the first time ever the village of Fiadanana has clean water flowing right into the village. A 40 year old dream has come true in October 2006!

Sorry, most of the latest updates are mainly pictures and it is difficult to express in word what has been accomplished. If you have faster access to the internet, please check this website with pictures.

The cement for the retaining wall has been carried up the mountain and the catchment system is being constructed.

A well has been dug and a hand pump installed on the school grounds.

Mosquito nets have been distributed to all households.

On a big one-day clean up effort, the village has been cleaned of dust, trash and debris, to improve overall hygiene and combat Tugaisais.

The trench for the permanent water system has been dug.

SCHOOL

The school is built. Roofing material was sent to Fiadanana October 15.

The villagers made the bricks for the school.

The construction materials not available locally have been delivered to the village.

The actual building of the school is expected to be finished in September 2006.

Fruit trees, a school garden and the ‘living fence’ have been planted in anticipation of the school inauguration.

GRAINERY


The school and the grain storage has been built. Roofing material was sent to Fiadanana October 15.

Bricks are being made and building materials have already been delivered.

A rice storage building will be constructed after the school is built.

October 15, 2006

Report from Zahana President via email

Hi,

Everything is going so fast here lately. The presidential election is planned for December 3rd this year. Everyone needs everything to be done with urgency now, to have a good report when election time comes around.

At this time one year ago both of you were here sharing our everyday life and we started our work in Fiadanana in full force. Its like a dream that we were really here.


Since October 2005 what has happened?

Something wonderful happened and everything just fell in place moving in the good way. Our dream is coming true: In few weeks people in the village will have their potable water, their grain storage building and kids will finally go to school!!! All these events are like a miracle for us.

The latest news:

1- Everything is developing in the right way, the inauguration of the permanent water supply water is planned for October 23rd but according to my work schedule we have to postpone it for the end of the month so I can be there when it is inaugurated. Why dont you come to see what we have done? All of us must be proud to have all these works accomplished. With our small budget we have done so much, because everybody participated in the effort and contributed as much as they could. We are thankful to our contributors in the West that made it possible to pay for the things we could not afford in Madagascar. Combined with the labor and enthusiasm of the people of Fiadanana we made all of this happen in less than one year!

2- The water source is 100 meters higher than the first one we found last year; its almost near the top of the mountain. To bring bags of cement up there wasnt kids game. The water is clear and safe to be drink right away, which I did and it tasted much better than those other water sources I know.

3- The school will be built by the end of this month as well. The bricks originally made were insufficient to built the school and we needed more. So the villagers made them. The grenier (corn/rice storage building) is almost finished. The corrugated iron for the roofs, both grenier and school, were sent by truck yesterday. And at this time they must put the roof for the grenier as soon as possible, so it can be used immediately.

4- What we need to do now is to think about the furniture for the school; for little kids small plastic chairs will be fine.

5- Its hard to find a good well-trained teacher. During the inauguration of the permanent water system well interview 2 prospective candidates. To start with the formal schooling we must look for someone willing to stay in the village and having some experience in teaching. This could be a challenge in finding the right person for Fiadanana.

6- Kids are already learning two times a week folksongs and dance for the inauguration festivities for the school and the water.

7- It was really exciting to see all these events in the village. Even though my regular job with the Ministry of Health keeps me very busy Im happy that at the same time something is happening making people in Fiadanana happy.

Ihanta
Zahana President, for all of us

 

Tuesday, 15 Aug 2006 Visit to Fiadanana August 9-11 2006

Report from Zahana President via email

This time a team of three physicians visited the village of Fiadanana. Two of them are board members and one of them a infections disease specialist that volunteered to come along.

Cleaning the village:
We spent one day to clean the village.

In an effort to improve the overall health of the village and address the problem of hygiene a major village clean up took place during our visit. One of the problems plaguing Fiadanana and many other rural villages in Madagascar is Tungaisis, a skin disease spread by fleas. Complications for Tungaisis, especially for children can be very debilitating and in some cases fatal.

The standard official course of action to combat Tugaisais is to spray the villages and houses with insecticides to kill the fleas. According to an assessment performed by Dr Daniel and his staff during the visit to Fiadanana the use of pesticide is not recommended in the case of our village. The much less toxic, “biological approach” should be: cleaning (the fleas need a layer of dust to grow) the village thoroughly and watering down the loose dusty by spraying it with water. Further garbage and loose organic matter must be collected in piles and burned. All pigs or cattle currently roaming around on the loose must be tied and put in fenced enclose.

Planting Fruit Trees:

Zahana had brought seedlings of fruit trees: mangos, orange, Loquat (bibasse), banana and papaya from a nursery in the capital to be planted in the school garden. These trees are hoped to built the foundation of many more fruit trees Children were asked to dig the garden around the school to plant the fruit trees.

We made a nursery of flowers and when the school is built these flowers will be moved and planted around. It was there nice to see all kids participating in the work. I kept to telling them that this is for them, that it would be nice to have a school with flowers and surrounded by fruit trees.

One observation during this activity: Its easier to get young people involved than the older ones. When they see members of Zahana actively participating in the actions (not just communicating with the village via messengers), they become motivated to participate themselves. In the morning when we said: “lets go to dig the garden because you boys havent anything to do right now”, a few minutes later girls and boys already came running with their tools.

Bricks for the School:
The bricks for the school should be ready in 15 days around August 25. The building of the school will start the last week of August and the school should be finished and ready to use in September [2006]. In the past few weeks there was too much occasional rainfall and it didnt allow making the bricks. Every time it rains they have to interrupt making the clay blocks, since they need to be dried in the sun before they can be burned.

General Assembly:

In order to get government approval for a permanent water system, villages must be equipped with adequate toilet facilities. The following decision were made:

1 toilet room (WC) for 2 to 3 households, within a garbage well.
The villagers set a deadline of 20 days to accomplish this task, but we agreed on the end of September.

Currently there is only one shared toilet in the village, so by the end of September we should see 30-45 WC in Fiadanan.

For the garbage: water should be sprayed on regularly, because water kills the disease carrying fleas.

Meeting with the committee in charge of follow up: - for the last three weeks the hand pump didnt work because the water level has been dropping due to the dry season. The suggested solution: ask the person who performed the digging of the well to deepen it.

We could see the water level in the bottom, but the pipe connected to the pump was too short to reach down into the water table. If it were deeper the water would come into the pipe and the pipe would be ok. If not Emmaus technicians [the company that installed the pump] should come to solve the problem.

Consultation and feedback from the pysicians:

Kids looked healthy, joyful and clean when we came, maybe they were told to be so, as they knew we were coming. We recommended some women to join the CSB [Basic Health Center] in Bevato [a 3 hour walk] for family planning. Its not safe for their health and for their babies to have 6 kids at 35 years of age (this is common in the village). [comment: Many mothers start having babies as young as 14 and reaching the ripe age of 35 is already considered “old” in a Malagasy village]

Other Events:

We also started a boy’s soccer club, which we provided with a soccer ball. During our stay, the girls followed suit starting their own girl’s soccer club, but we still need to provide them with their own soccer ball.

 

June 27 by email:

All the wooden materials, doors and windows, building supplies (nails, hinges, some tools) for the school and rice storage building were sent to Fiadanana last week. Rajery was in charge of it since I couldnt come along and he will stay in Fiadanana as a representative of Zahana to follow up the work and assist the villagers in using the materials.

To transport the building supplies an eight tons truck was needed. Unfortunately there was no more room for the hand pump, since the bridge cannot support more than this weight.

The hand pump for the schoolyard will be sent this week. On problem we are facing is the cost to get to Fiadanana, since the gasoline is rising almost daily and truck owner put the price up so high. We are still dealing with this problem, but some factors are out of each other’s control.

Visit to Fiadanana, June 2006


The people in Fiadanana were thinking that the project is over and had given up hope to see a Zahana representative again. The trench for the water system had been dug in February 2006 already. In the rainy season parts of trench were refilled by dust and overgrowing with plants.


In the subsequent community meeting and discussions everyone seemed to understand the situation. Zahana representatives explained that some factors have been out of our control and that finding the right company or partner to implement the water system and procuring the materials needed took more time than anticipated. Another complicating factor was that Fiadanana is located in such a remote area that roads during the rainy season are almost impassable. Fiadanana does also not have mail service and the next town with a telephone line is 4 hours away by car. Sending a message to Fiadanana is only possible by either finding an individual traveling to the area and hand delivering a note, or calling somebody in the town of Tsiroanomandidy and asking them to travel to Fiadanana to deliver the message in person. Using the "bush phone" or an oral messenger is not and easy, so staying in touch with the villagers is a constant challenge. Zahana is an all-volunteer organization and traveling to Fiadanana is very time consuming and costly, so the visits have to carefully planned and combined with e.g. being accompanied by a water engineer to justify the costs. Nobody at Zahana owns a car and one visit to the village costs the equivalent of a monthly salary of and MD in gasoline and travel costs for car and driver.

Activities during the visit:

Distribution of 118 mosquito nets to the community. Conducting a workshop on its use and care. The following priorities were set by the villagers based on community consensus:


Priority was given to pregnant women
Mothers with children under 3 years
Mothers with children under 5 years.
Elder mothers
Zahana women group

Demonstration of the portable water SunRay pasteurizer:

2 hours 10 min to get the red top down (and built in indicator button that makes the water safe for human consumption)
1 hour to get the water cool down to drinking temperature in the shadow
The water tasted good, everyone wanted to drink a cup of it.

School
People were on the way to build their own school since the water technicians didnt show up. The bricks they had started to make were made from rammed earth and it was decided that for the school clay bricks were needed, to build a permanent school building. The bricks already made will be used for the toilets and walls of the school. The community will start making the clay bricks immediately, since the doors and windows are already being made in Antananarivo and a 50% down payment has been made to the artisan wood workers.


Water
Zahanas new partner for the water system adopted another approach to get potable water to the village, vastly improving the original plan, but using the existing trench. A second follow-up visit to Fiadanana two weeks later by their water technician was planned before the big work project can begin: "to revitalize the peoples enthusiasm and to get them psychologically prepared for the huge community building job" as they put it. During this follow-up visit the actual materials needed to build the entire system will be assessed on location instead of an office in the capital. The final budget can only be developed after that assessment.

Four work teams will be assembled and trained that will work on the water system simultaneously under the guidance the technicians staying in the village, to get the work done before the new farming season starts.

Overall observations
The rate of diarrhea has increased significantly and the general hygiene situation has worsened since the last visit. During the next visit Zahana plans to invite a pediatrician and a second general practioner to join, so the team can jointly address the villagers health needs and make a better base line assessment of their health needs. The needs of the village are too big for one person alone to address in one short visit. Since some board members of Zahana are trained MDs in their day jobs, this goal is feasible.

April 13, 2006


The contract with the water Malagasy engineer to put in a permanent water system for Fiadanana has been signed. All that is needed now is to buy the materials like pipes and cement and built it.


We got this report from Zahana in on Aril 9, 2006


Hi,

I got a report from Fiadanana and want to share it with you. Its so wonderful the way people manage the project. We are in the process of putting in the permanent water system for the village.

The women with kids of the village were in charge of collecting pebbles and gathering the sand, men for digging the trench. The most strenuous work was to dig up the hard mountain soil. They just use the Angady, the only tool they have to do so. [Angady is a digging stick with a blade at its end used in Madagascar for everything] There are many stones in the soil everywhere, making the digging very difficult.

In the afternoon after working in their own fields they went to the community work project. The villagers also have already gotten ready the house for the water technicians and are planning the work schedule. Someone offered their house to store the materials for the pipe system.

All these things were done since Zahana asked Rajery to stay in Fiadanana to support the villagers enthusiasm and to assist them as best as he could.
Every Saturday a gathering of the elders was held to discuss the issue at hand followed up by a general village assembly on Sunday. For everything that required money like for example paying for the specialists to dig the well it was the elders who were in charge.

The beginning of the putting down the pipe work will take place after Easter (2006) when the water technicians and the materials are scheduled to arrive in Fiadanana. Rajery will stay up there to take care of the materials and to coordinate the follow up of the work.

Zahana will also take advantage of the water technicians truck to transport the larger materials needed for the school (beams, poles, windows and doors) to Fiadanana, so we can limit the numbers of trips needed. As with the trench the woman and children are again in charge of gathering the materials to make the bricks for the building. As soon as the rain stops they will start making and burning the bricks on site where the school will be built. They are using the water from the new dug well on the school grounds for their building needs, which is already a major relief for them, since they do not have to walk for 20 minutes for each bucket of water.

March 2006


WATER ENGINEER VISIT

In early February 2006 Zahana visited Fiadanana with a water engineer. The professional feedback provided a better understanding of the requirements and costs for a permanent water system. Zahana is currently in the process of soliciting other proposals and negotiating with suppliers directly to get the best price for the material and services needed, since a permanent water system is very costly.

What has happened since then?
Taking advantage of the fact that the current rainy season (which last until May) makes the ground softer the villagers have started with the projects that involved digging.


TRENCH FOR THE WATER SYSTEM

Inspired by the water engineer’s visit the villagers have dug the channel for the water pipes from the mountain to the village, assigning each family a channel section of equal distance. This work was accomplished in less then two weeks although the engineer felt it would take at least five weeks. People are clearly motivated.


HAND PUMP FOR THE SCHOOL
The well for the hand pump on the school grounds with a depth of 15 meters (50 feet) has been dug and completed. Zahana and the villagers opted for a hand pump in the school grounds. Fiadanana never had a well near the village and this will be the first time a source of clean water will be available.

Time will prove if the water table will remain stable and provide access to clean water year round. Zahana ordered one hand pump in early March and it will hopefully be installed within a month. This first pump will serve as a pilot study if this technology is beneficial for the village and meets their needs. Should this pump stand the test of time and survive the wear and tear, the villagers have already identified three other locations for hand pumps throughout the village.


BRICKS FOR THE SCHOOL BUILDING
The villagers will soon begin making the bricks for the school building. More than 20,000 bricks will be needed and the villagers will provide these and their labor to build the school. Bricks made from local clay that is shaped in forms and burned are commonly used for houses in this part of Madagascar. The villagers have already gathered the sand and pebbles needed for the foundation and mortar. Zahana is currently procuring the materials (doors, beams, roofing materials, nails etc) that need to be sent to Fiadanana.

With the help of the village elders the children are already practicing the songs that will be sung during the inauguration of the educational building. For the villagers, and especially the children, the school is becoming a reality.


LIVING FENCE

Some families have already provided little banana and papaya plants for the living fence to surround the school. These plants are tended and guarded from cattle and pigs and will provide both a fence and food supply in the coming years.

 

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