Since December 2022, the setec Foundation has been supporting the Eau de Coco association as part of its Transition Fund for a social project in southern Madagascar: “A welcome, a roof, a new start”.
Background
The Eau de Coco association, which has been active in Madagascar for many years, has reported a situation of extreme poverty affecting children in Tuléar, the main town in the south of Madagascar, particularly young girls.
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, Eau de Coco has observed an increase in violence against children within families, and a worsening situation of exclusion of young girls from the community.
This exclusion is due in particular to the high rate of unwanted pregnancies among these girls. These may be the result of sexual violence, which is becoming increasingly frequent, or the practice of prostitution among young girls, who are sometimes encouraged by their families to contribute to the family income. Nevertheless, pregnant girls are excluded from the community, and therefore all the more in danger as they become isolated and fragile in the face of various acts of violence.
Our partnership with the setec Foundation enables us to finance these first two stages in the girls’ journeys, but they don’t stop there. Eau de Coco teams follow up with them between 3 and 6 years after they leave the reception center, in particular to help them set up their professional project and access healthcare.
This project is monitored by Bao Andritsaina, a setec employee in Madagascar, who is involved in the selection and monitoring of Transition Fund projects in Madagascar. Her voluntary involvement as a relay for the setec Foundation means that she receives regular news from the reception center in Tuléar and feedback on developments in the local context.
The project
Eau de Coco submitted its project “Un accueil, un toit, un nouveau départ” to the setec Foundation. The project involves providing shelter and support for 15 young girls in distress in Tuléar.
The project has several components, ensuring the safety of the young girls and helping them to reintegrate into their communities. It is carried out in the Eau de Coco reception center already established in Tuléar, where other children are taken in, and for whom the importance of this program has already been proven over several years.
During the first few months, the girls are welcomed and cared for by health professionals (doctors, psychologists), and relearn how to evolve within a social group, in a safe and secure environment. During this period, the orientation of the girls is decided with them and their families, whose participation in the follow-up is essential, so that the children can join them once their stay at the center is over. Together with the center’s staff and their families, they can work out an educational and/or professional project.
From the third month to the twelfth, the beneficiaries can visit their families again, and begin implementing the project they have drawn up. They go to school and/or start vocational training, while continuing to be housed, fed and followed by their families.
More
For the past 1 year, they have been housed in shelters in Tuléar and Mangily in Madagascar.
The situation of these most vulnerable girls involves physical, sexual and psychosocial violence. The “Un accueil, un toit, un nouveau départ” project tackles school drop-out, malnutrition and child labor.
The Eau de Coco association, with the operational support of the local NGO Bel Avenir, is actively working to protect these young girls by creating favorable conditions for their physical and moral reconstruction, so that they can develop a school and/or professional life project. This also involves community reintegration and, if necessary, family reunification.
The girls supported within the framework of the partnership with the setec Foundation have followed a 1-year integration and attendance program. These involve a number of fundamental actions:
- Daily meals for the girls
- Access to health and hygiene supplies
- Securing the host homes
- validation of the program by the young people and their families, and their involvement in social integration
- Professional care
- Raising awareness of basic health care
- Integration into sports, art and cultural activities
- Psychological follow-up
- Setting up discussion groups
- Reintegration of young people into a suitable schooling program
- Regularization of civil status
…
The young people and their families are supported by educators, psychosocial workers and the Bel Avenir NGO team, making this project possible.
Of these 21 beneficiaries, 16 are about to begin the third stage of their reintegration.
The setec Foundation is proud to have contributed to these girls’ first step towards self-fulfilment.
