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Rotary Club Tricastin and ReefDoctor collaborate to help the Ifaty Primary School April 2007
Oct 30, 2008
Thanks to the dedicated work of Michel Rostaing one of the trustees of the ReefDoctor charity, the ReefDoctor project in Madagascar combined forces with the Rotary club of Tricastin from the South France to help improve the Ifaty primary schools facilities and materials for the school children.
The Ifaty primary school and other primary schools in the area are very much under funded and in poor condition with poor facilities and materials for children and teachers. The average village public primary school has one or two buildings (10x20m of standard design going back to the early 1980s) making up 2-4 classrooms which house between 200-360 pupils of 45-65 pupils per class and usually only have 3-4 teachers for all classes and pupils.
ReefDoctor has been working with the primary school of Ifaty since early 2003 conducting school repairs, providing materials and hiring teachers to ease the burden of the few teachers for so many children. In 2003 the Ifaty primary school had 4 teachers which included the headmaster and since 2004 ReefDoctor in collaboration with the education ministry of Toliara CISCO II and DREN has hired and paid for 4 additional teachers for the school.
After much discussion and agreement with the rotary members and ReefDoctor in late 2006 a new collaboration with the club was created for the long term aid to the Ifaty primary school and also plans for all the other primary schools in the Ranobe area.
Primary schools are not only the main focus of education for the local communities children they are also a heaven for children and parents as the schools provide food (lunch) every school day. The food is given by the WFP (World Food Program –UN) on a 3 year contract, i.e. so long as the food storeroom is kept in a suitable position the schools receives the help. This is hugely important as it helps families provide the necessary food for their children which recently has been getting harder and harder for (whom have an average of 5 children per family) as their marine environment of the Bay area has continued to degraded.
The first project in this new collaboration was a repair and rejuvenation project focusing on the Ifaty primary school with the primary school of Mangily being the next on the list for 2008.
The repair project started in March 2007 where 600Euros was raised by the members of Rotary through a sale of food products and rotary and ReefDoctor pens and t-shirts during the Christmas fair in Avigion.
The money raised was mainly put towards the schools ailing food storeroom which had been repaired by ReefDoctor in 2006 but still need more work to stop the rats and mice eating the food and water entering the room during the cyclone season.
ReefDoctor repaired the roof and structure but the building did not have a flour, its walls where bare brick and infestations of mice, rats and insects (mainly cockroaches) and though the roof and door had been repaired they where still in need of new doors with a secure lock and re-fixing the roof to stop water entering the room.
Using the local construction team of Mr. Elias from Ifaty village (all work men from Ifaty) started on the repairs in early March 2007 and took a month to undertake.
For 600euros (materials and transport from Toliara) the roof was re-laid with brand new tined roof (thicker to last longer due to salt water spray as the school land is only 50m from the sea) and sealed properly to prevent water intrusion. The walls inside and out where properly sealed with plaster and painted white. New cement flour was added and all holes sealed and disinfection of the building before the food was replaced. And finally a new door with lock was added and painted blue.
The old roofing from the storeroom was put onto the canteen area as the pervious roof was full of holes after only a year due to erosion from saltwater spray. In addition new wood was bought to replace the old wood for the benches inside the canteen and a new door was put onto the kitchen room.
ReefDoctor spent an additional 200euros on labour and food (twice a day).
The repair of the school also helped the local economy as all labourers (6) where from Ifaty, a local shop was used to supply them with their daily meals and all materials where transported to Ifaty from Toliara by Ifaty owned taxi brousses (public buses mainly a truck with seats).
An official opening of the new storeroom was held by the school and village president who thanked ReefDoctor and Rotary for their kind donation to the school and said that since westerners had been in the area (hotels) they had never received any real help until ReefDoctor and now Rotary came here and hoped the collaboration between the community and us would continue for the future.
Since the repair of these buildings the WHO returned to Ifaty in late June 2007 to check up on the state of the food storeroom, kitchen and canteen as per the contract for the food. The members of the WHO where highly impressed with the repairs, mainly the storeroom which they said was the best of any village in the area by far and the contract (so food) was re-instated for another 3 years.
The provision of food to the children is highly important to attract kids to go to school and since the 2006 and this repair to the school for the very first time 4 children from the school passed their exams to be accepted into secondary school. This has never happened before and we hope with continued focus on the school with the aid of Rotary each year more children can go to secondary school and if possible be aided financially to ensure they finish.
