FEEDBACK MADAGASCAR

Feedback Madagascar is the name of a small charity set up in the U.K. a few years ago to protect the forests of Madagascar and to free its people from the grip of poverty.

Its projects focus on relieving poverty through income-generated activities; improving the local stewardship of natural resources (especially rainforests); advancing the provision of education and promoting primary health care.

Madagascar is home to some of the most wondrous animals and plant life in the world but its forests are currently being destroyed in the struggle for daily survival by a people who are among the poorest in the world and who suffer and die from curable diseases and malnutrition.

Less than 5% of the population has an opportunity to earn a wage; 50% of the population is under the age of 15; the land is unable to support the inhabitants and prostitution at the weekly cattle market is one of the few options open to the young women.

The current proposal is that the Rotary Movement should team up with Feedback Madagascar to provide some positive help to these peaceful, friendly and resilient people. So two projects have been selected which will help the people to help themselves and which will lead to employment and an improved standard of living.

A human and natural resources training centre will be established where technicians would train several hundred local people in land management and food production.

It will be linked to and run parallel to a women's silk project to help revive this home industry in silk weaving which was destroyed during the Marxist regime between 1973 and 1992 Twenty three women and their dependants will immediately benefit with a further 25 women expected to join the project within a year.

The revival of the local silk industry, which traditionally provided a vital part in local culture and was a thriving cottage industry, was the idea of a small group of single mothers.

The aim is that in a few years' time the silk project will be self-financing and will be able to help fund the training centre.

The women have themselves identified that they need training in money management, primary health care and family planning, sanitation, nutrition, vegetable gardening, literacy, numeracy, marketing and alternative income sources for women.

The villagers have asked for education in improved systems of rice cultivation, composting, soil retention, agro-forestry, fruit growing, beekeeping and vegetable growing. The projects will be set up in Ambalavao which is a vital focal point, being in the heartland of the important Betsileo tribe and also the main link to the south of Madagascar along Route National 7. The Barra and Tanala tribes' people, who come to the market, sometimes from hundreds of miles away, are key informants to their communities at home.

The centre will be strategically placed as the Province has some of the poorest and most isolated communities in the country and yet it is geographically central.

Information on the way Rotary support will be channelled to the project and how Rotary will maintain a continuing involvement can be obtained from Geoff Godschalk, Telephone Number 01462 - 742837.

Silk Weaving is to be revived

A human and natural resources training centre and a women's silk project in one of the poorest areas of Madagascar within three years is the current aim of the Rotary Club of Letchworth Howard.

If your club would like to take part in this three-year project more information can be obtained from Letchworth Howard's President Geoff Godschalk on 01462 - 742837.