Madagascar School Project

In the summer of 2007 a Canadian elementary school teacher from Maxville, Ontario - Kathy Lucking - was volunteering in an orphanage in central Madagascar. She was struck by the hopelessness of the situation facing a great many of the region's children. Unable to go to school due to lack of family funds they couldn't seek opportunities to break out of the cycle of malnutrition and poverty.

She resolved to confront the education problem directly, by building a school and staffing it with competent, Malagasy teachers. Returning to Canada she established the Madagascar School Project Inc., a registered charity, headquartered in Eastern Ontario.

Soon an enthusiastic committee of local business people, fellow teachers, local church members and others embarked on the challenge of raising the funds to build a school. In that first year, as hundreds of Canadians contributed money for children on the other side of the world, architectural plans were prepared for the first school.

To build in Madagascar you must first make bricks
In an act of confidence, the brand new MSP Board, authorized Kathy to send $2000 to Madagascar to pay local people to make bricks. Through the winter of 2008 local residents fashioned the bricks out of the clay of the rice fields, and "baked" them, smoldering rice straw for two weeks, in the middle of the brick oven.

In July the work of building the first school was underway. By October, a new two-room school stood ready for students. It's called Lova Soa which means a school that gives children what they need to make a positive change.

A school in Madagascar must have water
In August of 2008, a well-digger dug a 17 metre deep well, by hand.

In October of 2008, 66 students, wearing the uniform the principal and her husband made for them, filed into school. We were truly underway.

In the summer of 2009, we expanded to build a second school! Sekoly Tenaquip was born.

The decision was taken after the mayor of our county, introduced Kathy to Mr. Charles, the President of a township in his constituency. Mr. Charles had researched and written up a detailed request for a school to be built in Ambohiborosy. He had all the statistics and facts which made a very good argument, for the huge need that was evident. Almost none of the children in this remote village went to school. They simply did not have the money.

Requests for consideration of this idea were first met with caution from our Madagascar School Project Board in Canada. Could we really afford to build and sustain another school? Due to the generousity of the Tenaquip Foundation, which came on board to help at that point, and the individuals who supported us, Mr. Charles dream became a reality and the vote taken on the subject ended in a resounding "YES"!

In the meantime, Kathy had met a very keen and intelligent engineering husband and wife team in Madagascar. Serge made up some blueprints and a general plan of the area. The president, Mr. Charles, had a committee together long before the decision to build was made. The land was purchased and the local villagers leveled the site, which is on the side of a mountain, dug the foundation, and began registering children. It was decided that the school would start by taking children four to six years of age, and would build up slowly, adding a class a year, as we welcomed new youngsters.

What began as a vague idea in August, became a reality as 126 children filed into their new school in January 2010. They looked very smart in their official uniforms as their 4 teachers, two aides and their principal welcomed them that first day. Their school had 6 classrooms all brightly painted, with real desks and chairs. Although these children had never held a book in their hands, one of their classrooms became a library, which they would soon be begging to be allowed to visit on a regular basis. A colleague in Canada, along with her book club, gathered enough books and money to be able to send over two pallets of used books from libraries from the Upper Canada District School Board and other community libraries.