Building the School in Fiadanana in rural Madagascar

• Please also visit: Building a school in the second village of Fairenana in 2009

A school for the village’s children was the community of Fiadananas second highest development priority. Until 2005 less than a dozen children had ever gone to school, walking for miles every day to attend school far away in other villages.

Built with community labor (pictures) and with bricks made in the village, Fiadanana now has its first school, attended by over 150 children (as of May 2008). Zahana hired, trained and committed to pay the two teachers’ salaries for the frist two years or more.

To prepare and train the teachers to teach children who have never gone to school before, an educational specialist was hired who spend six weeks in the village conducting the training. In the meantime the trainer has gone back twice to retrain and strengthen the curriculum.

• The School was built by the community in 2006/7 as soon as Zahana could secure the funding for the project

• The School was inaugurated in July 2007 and classes began

• School for Fiadanana was bulit by the villagers

To provide enough room for all students, a second school building is the next step for the community, who started making the bricks in the spring of 2008 to expand the exisiting structure.

• For Photos of Fiadananas new school being built back in 2005/6 please click here

• For an analysis regarding the need for school from 2005 please click here

School Building and Cooking Pavillion (in the back to the right)

Two teachers for the new school have been trained and hired. Fiadananas first two teachers, tought over 140 of the villages children

For background information about the school click here please

Building the School: Fiadanana never had a school for its children. With bricks made by the villagers they built their own school building.

Please click for more pictures about building the school

Making the bricks: As a corner stone of Zahana’s approach villagers contribute their labor and locally available materials to all the projects. The bricks for the school and the communal rice storage facility were made by the villagers on site.

 

 

Please click for more pictures about making bricks for the school