Some of you may have noticed that I am currently living in a pretty rural Madagascan village… Before I start writing about my impressions and time in Ambohitrakely, I think it is important to explain what brought me to such an obscure corner of the world…

In two short (and one fictitious) words: The Bookfeeding Project.

‘Volunteering’ is a word thrown around quite a lot. And to tell people I ‘volunteered’ in Madagascar could mean anything from lemur conservation to planting baobabs…

This is what the Bookfeeding Project is all about (directly quoted for the projects website):

The Bookfeeding Project is an association aiming at providing books and educational materials to communities in need. We create our libraries in cooperation with local NGO’s and organizations as a part of already existing project but we also build libraries as independent projects. We aim at creating self-sustainable and environmentally friendly projects in which you too can get involved and help. 

The Book Feeding Project is an entirely not for profit initiative. All of our volunteers not only work for free in their spare time, as well as cover all of their own costs (flights, food, etc.) when building and visiting our libraries. That means that ALL the money donated goes exactly to where it should, the communities we strive to help. How it all started? The Bookfeeding Project was started by Beatrice who, back in 2011, volunteered for AID India, a Tamilnadu-based NGO which mission is to empower socially disadvantaged people through socio-economic development programs and education by providing micro credit and training in the areas of health, human rights and utilization of resources for income generation. The Project was born thinking at all those second-hand books, unused old electronic devices (PCs) and outworn clothes that people store up in their houses and that they are unable to give away. Things that would help improving the facilities of the two orphanages currently managed by AID India and hosting more than 80 kids from age 4 to 18. In 2014 one Czech student had found out about the idea behind the Bookfeeding project and created one independent library in Madagascar with the same name. The network of Bookfeeding Projects was born. We are now working on improving the conditions in our existing projects as well as looking for new sites where we can create another library. We are also happy to include any projects with similar ideals in our network. We would like to stress on the fact The Bookfeeding Project survive on private donations: we are Non Governmental Organization which does not receive financial support by the local authorities OR the Catholic Church (or any typology of religious institution). We are a group of people from different cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs that joined up together to help others. We all work for free!

Madagascar Bookfeeding project was third of its kind. In March 2013, after one local lady offered her building for our project we organized first book and money collections for Madagascar and in July of the same year we finally opened the first Bookfeeding in Africa. Literacy rate in Madagascar is 65% with rank of 182 out of 194. That means that 35% of population cannot read. While most of the countries are improving, in the past decade the literacy rate in Madagascar has actually declined. Bringing more books to those who need them is essential aim of this project. 

The bookfeeding Projects are aimed to be self-sustainable; therefore there is no organiser or administrator at the projects all the time – which has been the case with my time at the project so far. I was also warned that the conditions would be rougher than my usual standards of living…

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world and although the villagers are very nice, the living conditions in the village cannot be compared to European/US/Australian standards. There is no electricity in the village and there is only one water pump (15m from library). You must therefore understand that having warm shower or microwave ready meal while checking your emails will be impossible. We are hoping to install a shower for volunteers so they do not have to carry buckets of water to the ‘shower room’ but this is still far from Western-style shower. This being said, here is what you can expect…

Kitchen

• Locals use coal with special pots to cook. Food in Madagascar is very cheap and you are more than welcome to cook for yourself too. However, shall you wish to, you can pay small amount (10-25Eur/month) to one of the local families and they can cook delicious Malagasy meals for you.

Bathroom

• dry toilet is outside and a small room is connected to the library building on the ground floor. In this room you can usually find big buckets full of water for shower.

Your Room

• You will be provided with free accommodation. This is room in the second floor of the same building where the library is. Bed, table, balcony, cupboard all is in there, and also amazing views of the countryside!

Town

• About 7km away there is a big town called Mahitsy. In this town you can find number of small restaurants (keep in mind those are ‘Madagascar-style restaurants), shops, post office, college, a big market where you can buy almost everything (clothes, food, kitchenware or school supplies…). There is also direct bus connection with Tananarive (the capital), the ride takes about 1,5hrs.

Your responsibilities

• The beautiful thing about self-sustainable projects is that you do not have to do anything particular. You can either choose to stay in the library and teach children how to read/write or some English or French. When kids are in school and colleges we can arrange for you to teach there as well. How many hours, days a week is completely up to you. You are also more than welcome to organize some mini-projects (photography, letter-writing, art-work) and tell us about your ideas and we can connect it to some schools or organizations in Europe. As mentioned above, we are also planning to improve the living conditions in the village, if you feel up to it, you can help us with the electricity project or shower-project!

So this is where I am and what I am doing. I will soon be writing about my experiences with the project and in the village. For more information on the project check out the Bookfeeding website.