How it all started...

After a cyclone in February 2007, my mother took my brother and me to a school that had been damaged. The school was located in the backyard of a church. There were three small classrooms and over 300 children attended this school. The classrooms were made out of wood, and the floor was only mud. It rained in the classrooms, there was no electricity, no books, no toilets, and not even charcoal to make food, but pieces of wood. My brother and I were shocked by the poverty of this school. We thought that it was unfair that we could attend an overseas American School with comfortable, nice, and decorated classrooms while other children just a few blocks away could not afford even a basic education.

This school is not the only one to be in this piteous condition. Many public elementary schools in Madagascar need help for everything despite the efforts of the government. Because the majority of the Malagasy people are poor, they usually cannot afford to send their children to private schools. They therefore send them to public schools in hard conditions. Most children then drop school after 5th grade to start working with their parents in the fields. It is not surprising that only 47% of the Malagasy students get their Baccalaureate.

Since we visited the school in February, my brother and I have been asking ourselves what we could do to help our neighbors. The problem in the public elementary schools is so huge that we did not know where and how to start. We therefore decided to start by providing some schools with chalk. Our parents also paid for the repair of the school that had been damaged by the cyclone.

However, we thought that our help was nothing compared to the enormous problems that these children faced in school.

On one of the days we went to distribute chalk to the schools, we met Mrs. Esther, a lady working for the ministry of public education. We started talking about the problems in these public elementary schools and she proposed to make us visit the schools that she took care of in the village of Anosiala. She showed us the real problems on the field: the lack of teachers and the inappropriate infrastructures. She made us visit the 5 schools that are in the Project tab. We discovered some schools without rooftop, other with walls, doors, windows in a disastrous state, most of them without electricity or even running water !

The task was way beyond our abilities.

Then, we made the second encounter which has made all this happen: A few days after we visited the schools, an old friend of my family paid us a visit at home. Mr Gilbert is over 70 years old and used to be a constructor. I took the chance to talk to him about the schools and he offered, without hesitation, to help us plan, design and supervise all the repair work provided if we paid for the materials and the workers.

We now had on one hand the knowledge and experience of Mrs Esther and on the other hand, the expertise of Mr Gilbert. All we needed now was the money to pay for the materials and the workers, and of course, we needed the approval of the authorities.

Mrs. Esther then took us to the Mayor of Anosiala, with whom we talked about our willingness to help the public elementary schools in Anosiala. Although he was a little dubious, he was pleased with our initiative and explained to us that they do not only need money, but people who dedicate themselves to these schools. He granted the authorization to work with the schools and the parents associations.

We decided to act first in Fiakarana, where a classroom roof has been missing for 2 years because of a cyclone! Mr. Gilbert visited the school and evaluated what had to be done to repair the roof and other buildings (more details under Projects > Anosiala > Fiakarana).

Mrs. Esther provided an analysis of the teachers needed in the public elementary schools in Anosiala based on the Malagasy norms: 50 students per teacher at most. She therefore recommended to hire 8 teachers for 5 different schools, whose salary would have to be paid by Keelonga with some participation from the students’ parents.

Once we had all our data, we started to collect money. Surprisingly, this has been so far the easiest part: We asked our parents, our uncles, other individuals and corporations that we knew. Everyone agreed to sponsor the project. I also asked the school that I am currently attending, the American School of Antananarivo, if Keelonga could have some of the profit of a movie night. The school agreed for more: Keelonga would get 10% of all the profit of the Student Council’s parties and canteen.

As of today, we have done repair work in 3 schools, we are paying for 8 teachers and this is just the start of this great story. I hope we will manage to grow and make this project sustainable for many years. I hope that one day Keelonga will be an important organisation that helps all the "keelongas" in Madagascar to have an easy access to free and decent education. I also hope that Keelonga will influence the success of Malagasy children throughout the country and give children the willingness to continue their studies and get at least their Baccalaureate.

Dear reader, you can help the public elementary schools in Madagascar as well! You can contribute in many ways, so, contact us to visit the schools, communicate your ideas, donate money, give a class in one of the schools, help dig a water well ... Remember: receiving is good, but giving is even better!

Leila Pirbay