Welcome to our English speaking visitors !

 

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Nazarena-France....

A young and (still ) small humanitarian association
A sound pathway to helping Madagascar
A very long-lasting embedding and permanent connections with the villagers
Reliable financial and operating procedures

...is helping Madagascar

Nazarena-France is a young NGO created in 2005 by Dr Suzanne Chazan-Gillig, an anthropologist and a specialist of the Sakalava Menabe on the Western Coast of Madagascar, where she has been working for a number of years. Suzanne was in Morondava in 2004, when the Gafilo hurricane devastated the Menabe region. She collected donations from parents and friends in France, and she was able to support some people who had lost all their properties in the disaster. She felt that it was necessary to develop these activities, in order to answer to new poverty issues in the Menabe Region. Since then Nazarena-France has grown, it is presently a 60 member-organisation, fully registered under French laws and regulations.
In the long range, Nazarena-France will develop humanitarian projects for the poorest regions in the world. Presently our support is devoted to a village situated north of Belo Tisiribihina on the Western Coast of Madagascar, the village of Aboalimena. Nazarena-France has a close relationship with its Malagasy counterpart, Nazarena-Madagascar, created in the same village. With its strong background of anthropologists and social sciences specialists of Madagascar, Nazarena-France intends to shift from strictly humanitarian missions to promoting a more general educational assignment, taking into account the villagers’ way of life, the real origin of poverty, while keeping a social sciences approach to local development

Nazarena-France offers its members and partners a positive contribution to Madagascar’s development and a direct pathway to improving its rural welfare, by enhancing education, healthcare, local economics, while respecting the village social organisation and supporting all internal forms of co-operation.

On a small region scale, our contribution is in line with the main objectives of sustainable development:
to implement social equity and integration of women, young people and local associations
to establish economic efficiency (new agricultural activities, craft, co-operative trade )
to promote sustainable management of natural resources (forest, water )

 


the fist eggplant grown in Aboalimena

 

 

"angady" digging in the field

(photo S.Chazan©)

 

Our action area

The geographic area where our action takes place was chosen with care. The Menabe Region is one of the poorest in Madagascar. Aboalimena is a remote village, with little to attract tourists although not very far of the “Great Tsingy”, a natural curiosity. It is not easy to reach by road. The main road links Antananarivo to Menabe by Antsirabe, Miandrivazo, and through a rather poorly maintained section to Malaimbandy, Mahabo and Morondava. The journey by daily minibus lines from Antananarivo to Morondava lasts 12 hours. A 4 hour- drive from Morondava to Belo Tsiribihina is followed by the crossing of the wide Tsiribihina River. The last part, a 70 km travel is made by truck, or possibly by an ox-driven cart, a traditional means of transport. In the rain and hurricanes season, from December to March, most of the roads are cut off. This situation explains why international aid or government programmes cannot reach Aboalimena.

Aboalimena is a 8,500 inhabitant-village, the district being divided into 8 Fokon’tany. Some hamlets belonging to the village of Aboalimena are 10 km away from the centre, connected by ox tracks. The council hall is situated in the village centre, as well as the local “hospital”, a primary healthcare unit. There is neither water supply in Aboalimena, nor electricity, or waste water drainage. Most inhabitants are farmers or cattle breeders. The main crop is paddy, rice being the staple food in Madagascar, but the changes in the River Manambolo bed due to the hurricanes have dried some paddy fields. Other crops are maize, manioc or sweet potatoes. Cattle breeding is usually a family trade, oxen are used for transportation and as a saving stock. People are generally very poor, as an example, the mean salary of a school teacher is about 100,000 ariary per month (about 40 €)

Nazarena-France Chairwoman, Suzanne Chazan-Gillig had been in the Menabe area in the 70s, and she has come back every year since 2002. She had the opportunity to build up trustful relationship with the local project promoter, Dera Haidaraly, with the Aboalimena council and with traditional lineage top men. Already in 2006 she could measure the effects of Nazarena-France’s support, which was implemented thanks to our members‘ donations, with -up to now- no other subsidy.

Supplying new means for sound projects

Nazarena-France’s project is supported by our thorough knowledge of the intervention area and of the ways of life of its inhabitants. We pay much attention to the output of our actions and we ask full co-operation from the villagers in order to avoid a situation of a one-way aid with no involvement.

New developments since the creation of the NGO in 2005 are:

A farming school in Aboalimena (2007)
The development of experimental vegetable crops (2006)
A healthcare and mutual drug supply system project (2006)
A paddy storage operation (2005)
Support to local associations

A Farming School in Aboalimena (2007)

The creation of a farming school in Aboalimena is our most challenging project. The school will deliver farming education and general teaching to young men and women who otherwise would have no opportunity to follow a regular teaching course. Thanks to the support of the village council and its wise men board, so far a 2.5 hectares field (but possibly twice as big) has been attributed to the future school, situated right in the centre of the village. This field is presently being cleared for cultivation and building, tree stumps have been removed and a fence is being built.

Our projects have been submitted and approved by local government officials, and we expect this will allow Malagasy teachers to be appointed on a regular basis as soon as the school is opened. But it is our intention to start building four classrooms during the 2008 dry season for about 20 boys and girls, and as soon as possible to start a second building for a boarding-school and a toilets out building. We plan a traditional building with a concrete floor, a wooden frame and a corrugated iron roof. An allowance will be reserved for school furniture (benches, tables, blackboards, books and possibly little office automation), and farming tools (tools, a plough, a handcart, watering cans, the digging of a well and the setting a pump)

The development of experimental vegetable crops (2006)

One of the first projects implemented in Aboalimena was developing a one hectare field for vegetable crops. With donations from Nazarena-France this field was cleared, fenced, and a 9 meter-deep well was dug to reach the ground water. Nazarena Madagascar was provided with farming tools and free seeds (tomatoes, local pot herbs, onions, peppers and eggplants).

A first crop was reaped in 2006, and pot herbs could be sold to the neighbourhood, as well as peppers and eggplants, and hot red peppers which are very much appreciated on the local market. This diversification experiment will be extended to “bahiboho”lands, flooded lands situated on the river banks, allowing farming when the water level drops.

A healthcare and mutual drug supply system (2006)

An enquiry was done in the surrounding hamlets of Aboalimena during the 2006 dry season, which showed that the healthcare system was far from being optimal and did not correspond to the needs of the inhabitants living in remote hamlets or temporary encampments. Medical assistance was supplied for urgent needs, including some drug delivery or presbyopic second-hand glasses, but our intention was to evaluate a mutual drug supply system. However we felt that under the present conditions (no trained person in charge, no secured supply and medicine chest) it was too early to launch this operation on a larger scale.

A paddy storage operation (2005)

During two successive years, Nazarena-France has bought paddy rice on the local market in order to organise its storage for the shortage period between the last crop and the new one. The paddy distribution was entrusted to the local women’ associations with variable success. Although this operation allowed the poorest people to be helped, as soon as getting paddy became less expensive, the intervention was ended.

Nazarena-France committee

Chairwoman : Dr Suzanne CHAZAN  (Anthropologist, Madagascar specialist)
Vice-chairman :  Dera HAIDARALY ( Malagasy researcher, Chairman of Nazarena-Madagascar)
Vice-chairwoman  :  Aline ROYET  ( Teacher)
Secretary  : Dr Emmanuel FAUROUX ( Anthropologist, Madagascar specialist)
Treasurer  : Dr Jean Bernard CHAZAN  ( Medical doctor )
Deputee Secretary : Patrick DIEUDONNÉ (Geographer, Madagascar specialist) 

Nazarena-France, 144 rue de l'Arnel 34070 Montpellier France, phone/fax (33)467 20 12 59, mail to info@nazarena.org

Note : This is not a miror image of Nazarena-France web site, but a shortened presentation for the benefit of our foreign visitors

Conception graphique : Patrick Diéudonné