Educate to empower- School in Madagascar

Those loose coins jingling around in the bottom of your pocket could keep a school open in the small village of Ambohimadera in Madagascar.

                                                                                                                  One euro a day.
                                                                                                  Keeps 150 children in school.

                                                                    “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
                                                                                                                                                                        – John Dewey
 
Ambohimadera is an agrarian village whose residents subsist on a meager standard of living. Eugénie, a pastor, arrived in the village for her work and learned that the children only had an education up until 3rd grade (9 yrs old) at which point many stopped their education, unable to commute to the nearest secondary school 10km away.

 
The children were confronted with a choice, walk 20k every day, often without eating or stop attending school. A pattern began. Boys go to the fields to help their parents as early as 9yrs old and the girls get married and have children as early as 14 years.
 
Deeply moved by this injustice, Eugénie took matters into her own hands and created NY DINA College in Ambohimadera.
Built piece by piece by Eugénie’s own meager means, the school grew from two classrooms in her home, to four and a small cafeteria. The school is now staffed with 5 teachers, all of which are former students.


Maintaining NY DINA College has not been an easy task for Eugénie. The parents who have the means, sometimes pay less than one euro a month to fund the teacher’s salaries.

Most parents cannot afford even this.

 
To fill the funding gap, Eugénie set up a henhouse of 150 chickens with the help of an outside donor. Selling the chicken’s eggs funded the teachers' salaries until the entire hen house died from an illness, leaving Eugénie and the teachers scrambling.

 
Eugénie has given all that she can, but her income alone can no longer sustain the teachers.
Now she is faced with a tough decision: find a solution with the odds stacked against her or abandon the 150 children.


Eugénie is fighting an uphill battle, but she does not have to do it alone.

                                    $1700 will fund all five teachers' salaries for an entire year, plus basic school supplies.

                                    $30 can fund one teacher’s monthly salary.


But why stop there? We are setting a $3000 GoFund Me goal with hopes of providing Eugénie with a buffer to sustain NY DINA College for longer than one year so she can create a sustainable solution for the future.
 
By donating, you are not just providing the teachers’ income, you are supporting the entire community, and you are bringing hope and possibilities to the children of Ambohimadera.
 
                                       The NY DINA College motto aptly states, “I will rise from poverty through education.”
                                                                                    Donate today and contribute to that rise.


                                                             “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
                                                                                                                                                          – Frederick Douglas