Madagascar

Our Actions

Improving the Quality of Education for Middle School Students in Rural Areas

In rural areas of the country, only 1% of Malagasy youth obtain a Bachelor’s degree. In 2021, to improve the quality of education in the country, BSF deployed an Ideas Box at the university campus in Fianarantsoa and five Ideas Cubes in several boarding schools in the region, managed by the IECD and the PROMES association. Trained by our teams, local teachers and educators have used our tools and media content to improve their teaching practices and fight against school dropout rates.

Alliance 3.0: Ideas Cube in the Alliance Française

Since the summer of 2017, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (Libraries Without Borders) has been working in collaboration with the Alliance Française Foundation to boost the Alliance Française’s Malagasy, Mauritanian, and South African media library networks and thus facilitate the learning of French. In the fall of 2017, our team installed Ideas Cube kits within these three networks and trained the corresponding facilitators. Since then, these three Alliance Française networks have been organizing dozens of activities per month, inspired by the content BSF selected for the Ideas Cube. Besides language-learning activities, some sites offer other kinds of programming, including offsite events. That is the case of the Alliance Française of Antsirabe, which contributed to a university forum geared towards professional preparation for young people. Additionally, the Foundation has created a best practice community to connect the three networks and BSF, which accompanies them in the implementation of their activities and provides them with technical support when it is necessary. This community allows them to share their experiences and discuss activities; it is today proof of the progressive and certain appropriation of the device by the three Alliance Française networks.

Support for the Creation of Six School Libraries at Antsohihy

In 2010, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (Libraries Without Borders) helped establish school libraries in six kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high schools in the region of Antsohihy, in the northwest of Madagascar, with the help of the Madagascar Mutual Aid Association.

Our team selected and sent 2,500 books and many others in Malagasy were bought on site. We have also trained managers and facilitators  from different libraries; nearly 5,500 students and teachers can now benefit from these libraries on a daily basis.

Libraries in Two Rehabilitation Centers for Children on the Streets of Antananarivo

The association Graines de Bitume (Seeds of Asphalt) created two welcome centers for children from the streets of Antananarivo. In 2010, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (Libraries Without Borders) collaborated with  this association in the creation of library spaces: 2,500 works were selected and sent, and 200 more were specially purchased in Madagascar. We have also donated computer equipment, supported the digitalization of catalogues, and trained library personnel in basic library management.

Our Work in Madagascar