Madagascar
“Miara” means “together” in Malagasy.
The impulse for our joint project arose in connection with news and photos by Navid Kermani, who is currently traveling through East Africa for the newspaper “Zeit”.
For seven years it has hardly rained in formerly fertile regions in the south of the island of Madagascar. Water sources for the people and their livestock have dried up. Families are forced to walk long distances to get water, which they then carry back many kilometers on their shoulders.
In order not to starve, the people process their remaining trees into charcoal. Unfortunately, this is turning the once tropical island into a desert. The storms at sea, which have increased at the same time as the drought, the exploitation of the seas by foreign markets, and the increasing destruction of the coral reefs to which the young fishermen flee, also make this source of food and income more difficult.
Doctors for Madagascar
There is no general health insurance in Madagascar and especially in the barren south there is a lack of functional health facilities as well as trained medical staff.
The organization “Doctors for Madagascar” has been active in the south of the island for 10 years. The foundation stone of its own activities was laid by the association with a surgical clinic built in 2013 with local partners in the heart of the savannah, which has since been organized independently and supported financially from its own income. The association, which is registered in Germany, currently works with over seventy existing hospitals and health centers in the south to improve access to and the quality of medical care. The association supports the partner centers, for example, by providing further training for medical staff, renovations and structural extensions, or extended support for medical care for the poorest.
The association currently employs ninety, exclusively local staff and works at four locations in the south.
The medical focus of the work is on mother and child health, including the operation of three ambulances for pregnant women and children in emergency situations and the treatment of tuberculosis patients.
Donation account for “Doctors for Madagascar”:
IBAN: DE65 8605 5592 1090 0096 70
BIC/SWIFT: WELADE 8L XXX
Our first joint project
We, Avicenna Kultur- und Hilfswerk e.V., support the treatment of tuberculosis (TBC). People in extreme poverty and with malnutrition are particularly often affected by the disease.
Currently, about 1,500 TB patients are undergoing treatment in the Atsimo-Andrefana region. Due to the remoteness of many villages, this is mainly carried out by mobile clinic missions supported by the association, which are implemented together with four local tuberculosis laboratories.
Our support benefits the mostly very poor TB patients for the financing of the mobile treatment as well as the inpatient treatment of severely ill patients. In addition, we would like to help to improve the ventilation in the TB laboratories and to install shelters (“chalets”) to provide shade during the mobile clinics in the bush.
Mobile Aid Madagaskar e.V.
Madagascar – this beautiful country with its unique flora and fauna unfortunately also has a very different side.
Poverty, misery, bad living conditions, lack of hygiene and insufficient nutrition areomnipresent and a real threat to the health of the people. In addition, the medical care provided to the population by doctors and hospitals is far below the global average.
The island is home to 27.8 million people, nearly 40 % of whom are under the age of 14. Fortheir medical care, there are about 4,800 doctors, including about 16 pediatric specialists, and 0.2 hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants.
This means that each of these physicians must care for about 5,800 people in a countrywithout sufficient infrastructure. As a consequence, many people are completely excludedfrom health care because there are no longer any asphalted roads just a few kilometers outside of the big cities. Narrow clay paths with huge potholes and unpaved shoulders lead into thebush regions, and when it rains, these turn into mud tracks that make the way to villagesimpassable.
There are only a few state-run health facilities, the so-called “Centre de Santé de base“, spreadacross the entire country. These health stations are similar in principle to a family doctor’soffice. Officially, the treatments should be financed by the state and free of charge. However, for the majority of the population, “no money, no medical care” applies. Corruptibility iswidespread throughout the country and unfortunately also in the health care system. Every treatment must be paid for in advance, and this applies to materials and medicines. Doctorsand nursing staff are paid extra for their work, and only those who can pay cash are treated. The lack of medicines and medical supplies is also alarming. The shelves and cupboards ofthe wards are empty, just like the wallets of the people who come expecting help and areusually disappointed.
Health Center
Our health center is an outpatient care facility with a variety of specialties. The generalpractice is open to all age groups. Consultation hours are Monday through Saturday with upto 100 treatments per day. Pregnant women are cared for by our midwives. All examinationsare performed according to the German maternity guidelines. After the birth, women and theirchildren come to our office for postpartum care, newborn examinations, vaccinations, familyplanning and contraception. Our dental office is also open to young and old, for paintreatments and preventive dental care. For emergencies, the hospital’s entire medical team isavailable around the clock, every day of the week.
Here you will always find current information:
On our website and via our weekly newsletter.
Donation account for Mobile Hilfe Madagaskar e.V.
Sparkasse Aschaffenburg
IBAN DE057955000011418472
BIC BYLADEM1ASA
or via PayPal
We are recognized as a non-profit organization and every donation directly benefits theproject in Madagascar. In Germany, all members of the association work on a voluntary basis.
MHM – Obstetrics Hospital
It all started with obstetrics, and even today the work of our midwives is the most importantbuilding block in the care of women, children and families. They make a major contributionto health promotion and prevention. Looked after by expert midwives, women can give birthin safe surroundings and security before returning to their village a few hours later with thenewborn in their arms. Cesarean sections, which often save lives, can also be performed in Ambovo. Pregnant women with serious, often life-threatening pregnancy diseases are caredfor as inpatients. For prematurely born children and those born with deficiencies, we have setup a mother-child ward with an intensive care and monitoring unit on the upper floor of theclinic.
Since we also see ourselves as a training facility for our own staff, but also for interestedexternal personnel, we have a training center on our premises where advanced and furthertraining courses are held for midwives, nursing staff, doctors, but also for the staff of all other professional groups.
MHM – Mobile Units
In addition to the hospital, we also operate 4 mobile care units:
– the midwife mobile our nucleus for the care of pregnant women living on the streets of the nearby capital.
– the dentist mobile for the care in difficult to reach outside areas and especially children also in friendly projects
– the kidsmobil for the care of street children in the evening hours on several days of the week in the nearby capital city
– the ambulance for the transport of patients to the hospital or necessary transfers.
For this work with a total of 147 Malagasy employees we need your support.
The project is completely financed by donations and we are grateful for every donation.
Fanajana e.V.
Fanajana in Malagasy means respectful and respectful, and this is exactly how we realize building, school and further education projects in the south of Madagascar in close cooperation with the people living there, all of which contribute to improving their difficult living situation.
Fanajana e. V. is a small association based in Hamburg. We, Claudia Schweppe-Unruh (midwife) and Dr. Martin Frank (gynecologist), worked in tandem for the first time five years ago in southern Madagascar to train midwives in small rural health centers. The desolate situation of the health centers there (French: Centre de Santé de Bas, abbreviated: CSB) and the lack of equipment on the one hand, and the high willingness of the staff to further educate themselves on all topics of obstetrics on the other hand, touched us so much that we decided to found our association on our way back from Madagascar.
To date, we have been able to finance the construction of three drinking water wells with water towers and solar pumps with the support of the Hamburg Climate Protection Fund. Since then, these wells supply two small health centers and a school as well as the respective surrounding villages.
In the village of Sevaseva, we have made it possible for a school garden to be planted next to the school, in which the students, parents and teachers now grow their own vegetables, thus making an important and effective contribution to the fight against the great famine. The number of students has increased from 200 to 320, so that we “had” to build a new classroom this year (2022). All work, including the construction of the school furniture, is carried out by local tradesmen.
Currently we are in the middle of planning for a Centre de Santé de Bas in Ambatovaky. A CSB is existentially necessary there in order to provide 5,000 people and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages with basic medical care on site for the first time. It is close enough, for example, so that pregnant women no longer have to walk 20 kilometers over gravel roads to the nearest CSB in Ejeda. This is because the long and difficult routes repeatedly lead to life-threatening delays.
This new CSB will provide prenatal care, births, emergency medical care for all, family planning, prevention education and vaccinations.
With Fanajana e. V. we would like to cover the entire construction costs. In addition, we will conduct training courses for midwives and nurses in this CSF and would like to enable them in the medium term to continue to train future colleagues themselves. All in the spirit of “helping people to help themselves”.
In the meantime, we have received contractual assurances from the local health authority that it will provide a suitable building site, contribute to equipping the CSB and bear the personnel costs of the medical staff in the long term.
The construction costs for this CSB amount to about 50,000 euros and we are currently still missing 10,000 euros to be able to realize this project.
Our association is recognized as a non-profit organization and works on a voluntary basis, so that financial support flows exclusively and directly into this project on site.
We are grateful for every donation.
Website: www.fanajana.de
Donation account: Fanajana e.V. Deutsche Skatbank
IBAN: DE52 8306 5408 0004 0671 93
BIC: GENO DEF1 SLR
PayPal: Fanajana@web.de
