Madagascar Open Letter 2008-2009

For French-speaking schools, the school year will begin on September 2 and end in July 2009.
In the Malagasy program, the 2008/2009 school year will fall on September 22. Contrary to usual, the summer holidays will not begin until the end of July 2009. This extension will be compensated by a rather long holiday period during the end of year holidays.

The first official exam for obtaining CEPE will take place at the beginning of August 2009 !!!

INFORMATION TAKEN FROM THE MADAGASCAR EXPRESS OF THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2008 PAGE 3 ON THE ONE. < br /> Another very important information taken from the newspaper “Les nouvelles” of Wednesday July 9, 2008 on page 5 under the heading Society is: PRIMARY EDUCATION , the ” malgachisation “ for the first five years

.

The State is more than determined to apply the reform relating to primary education in seven years from this start of the 2008-2009 school year. The choice of Malagasy as the language of instruction for the first five years is part of this new orientation.
“Students must first master the Malagasy language to better integrate into education and culture, but without neglecting foreign languages ​​”insisted the President of the Republic, Mr. Marc Ravalomanana on Tuesday July 8 during a working session with the great family of Education and the World Bank team. br /> All this risks compromising our Association and the organization we had set up to deliver the academic results of your godchildren and godchildren. Indeed, we had gotten into the habit of collecting school results in mid-July. My husband then took them in his suitcases at the beginning of August and we proceeded to the distribution as soon as possible…

I believe however that we will not already worry about the end of the school year then that she has just started !!!

EVERY DAY IS ENOUGH HIS PAIN…
Speaking of grief, I got a lot of it reading the rest of the news articles that I found piled neatly on my desk and read at random! L’Express de Madagascar devoted a color double page to their daily information and analysis daily on Monday, June 16 under the heading “ Social facts and acts. »

Readers are shocked by the color and the headlines: Poverty The slums of misery. Hygiene Efforts in sanitation. I can read that insalubrity, pollution and overcrowding form the envelope of poverty, especially in the lowlands of the capital.
These neighborhoods are crossed by open-air drainage canals, c is to tell you the hygiene that reigns there. Families share a piece of land rented, between 5,000 and 10,000 Ar, to a private individual to each build their own cabin. The agglomeration of measures leaves only a narrow alleyway to get around.

The huts built in this way are never made of wood or unfired bricks and in which an average of seven people lodge. Inside, the overcrowding gives off a stifling smell from the piling up of dirty linens. People sleep on the floor on a mattress made of pieces of fabric and mostly covered with a sheet. Those who can afford it make a bed out of round wood and planks, in order to avoid humidity during the rainy season and to alleviate the direct impact of the cold. Because of its small size, the cabin often contains only one bed and a shelf, in order to facilitate more or less movement inside.
The kitchen area is located in the same room or just outside. the entrance to it. The equipment usually consists of a pot for cooking the rice and a smaller one for preparing the side dish. The supposed bed also serves as a dining table. These images are found in the slums of Tana, especially in the delimitation of the first arrondissement, the one where we work.

THE HEALTH CENTER IS ALSO DEFICIENT.
Malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea and the flu often plague children and adults in this part of Tana city. Half of the population does not have a toilet. People use public toilets or simply defecate in good places like drainage channels near where they live. The people in charge of the fokontany ( communal houses ) apparently organize a big sweeping of the alleys every month in the company of the communal agents !!!

There would still be a lot to tell you about the articles from this Malagasy winter that awaited me. For example on child labor, domestic abuse of children, the fact that street children come back en masse to survey the streets of the capital; the months pass, follow and look alike… ..

As late as this Thursday morning, September 18, 08, another national daily of information and analysis “ The news ” front page: A Global Scourge 925 million people are hungry !!!

The Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Agency ( FAO ) Jacques Diouf, announced new alarming figures on hunger in the world which today affects 925 million people against 850 million previously !! The number of undernourished people before the 2007-2008 price spike was 850 million. This number has increased during the year 2007 alone by 75 million !!!
This statement made in Rome in June by Mr. Diouf during he hearing before the Foreign Affairs and Agriculture Committees of the Italian Parliament is more than worrying. The FAO Food Price Index shows an increase of 12% in 2006 from the previous year, 24% in 2007 and 50% in the first seven months of this current year . Even if the forecasts are better thanks in particular to the increase in agricultural areas in the Russian Federation.
“Prices will remain strong for several years to come and the food crisis will continue in poor countries” warned Mr. Diouf.
“We must invest 30 billion dollars per year to double food production and eliminate hunger” he added, deeming this figure “quite modest” in comparison with the sums spent by the member countries of the OSCE to support their own agriculture (376 billion USD) or expenditure on armaments (1.204 billion in 2006)!
FAO member countries pledged at this summit in early June in Rome to halve the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015, despite the food crisis, according to the final declaration of this meeting. This declaration, obtained in the snatch after bitter negotiations, reaffirmed the conclusions of the 1996 and 2002 food summits: “To achieve food security” and “To reduce by half the number of undernourished people to 2015 at the latest ”. Mr. Diouf estimated at the time that with the observed trends this goal would be reached in 2150 instead of 2015 !! The Rome summit raised more than $ 6.5 billion in pledges to fight hunger and poverty .

The United Nations World Food Program ( WFP ) mentioned during of this summit the figure of “ nearly a billion poor people ” and announced the implementation of an aid program to fight against the food crisis € 142 million in 16 “ hot spots ” particularly affected by hunger.
When we know that the Big Island is one of the poorest countries in the world , we hope for better days in the years to come… So I will leave it there for today, I prefer to see the glass half full rather than half empty !!

I will end this letter open by talking to you about a subject much nicer than the misery we face every day and which we courageously try to face!

L ” EVENT THAT WE PUT INTO THE SPOTLIGHT THIS IS SIZE !!! Always concerned with helping underprivileged children, “ Children of the Street ” are working on a new project.
The construction of an upgrade center (or upgrade as the case may be) which will be called “ZAZAGAZY. »Which means word for word« Malagasy children »!
In order to raise funds for the realization of this project, EDLR and the members of the Zazagasy committee organize a Gala evening which will be held October 18, 2008 in Antananarivo. We receive a lot of interest from the people we approach for support. We are very hopeful that this project will be successful and I would like to thank all the donors here already.

Both those who help us with donations of money or in kind here on site as well as those from here or from Belgium and France who have contributed to the cost of printing our book which will be put on sale shortly. All these people or companies will be in place of honor either in our book or on the stele that we will erect when the time comes at the entrance to our center.
& gt; We will keep you informed through our site of the fundraising obtained and the progress of the project. Before leaving you, I would like to add that you too are welcome if you want to participate in this beautiful project.
THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO DO IT.
1. For example, you can think of offering as end-of-year gifts to your family, friends or good customers, our superb book which will be on sale for 25 €. With the purchase of at least 50 copies we would give a 10% discount and we can personify the cover with a banner with your name on it. Here is an original idea for your end of year gifts, don’t you think? Think how happy it will be to give this gift.
Not only will you give a book of great beauty, but your gift will help improve the future of needy children by giving them the opportunity to open up to a happier future
2. By paying even a modest sum to the account of the future center:

Children of the Street:
In Europe:
In Madagascar: Bank DEXIA, BELGIUM
088-2410790-44 (Euros)
IBAN: BE80-0882-4107-9044
SWIFT: GKCCBEBB Banque Of Africa BOA
00009/05000/15576480070/25 (Ariary)
00009/05000/15576480095/47 (Euros )
00009/05000/15576480082/86 (USD)

3. By talking about us around you, make your families, friends and acquaintances aware of our cause so that they too can become one of the links in our chain of solidarity. May together we reduce somewhat the misery of the children of Tana! Even if there was only one, it’s worth it !!

From the bottom of my heart my dear friends who have supported us for so long THANK YOU!

All of you newcomers to our channel, we thank you very much for being here, because without you we would no longer exist !!!
Sincerely,
Nicky Van Ass.
President-Founder