Madagascar: School meals for needy students

The ‘Lycée Saint Vincent de Paul’ is a community school run by the Marist Brothers with two secondary levels. The total number of pupils is around 500 and they are young people aged between 10 and 19. Most of these students come from the countryside (sons and daughters of farmers), with a few coming from the town of Betroka.

Many students drop out of school throughout the year for various reasons. Here are the main factors: Poverty: parents lack the money to pay school fees. Customs and traditions: Girls are forced to marry early while boys are expected to take care of the animals (cattle). Lack of motivation: Many people do not realise why they should go to school. Why waste time at school while others seem to be running their own business. Lack of concentration and poor academic performance due to poor nutrition.

This is where the current school feeding programme comes in! The majority of the population in this area are farmers who live from livestock farming and rice, maize and manioc cultivation. Environmental degradation (mainly due to bush fires) and drought hit the southern part of Madagascar hard every year. As a result, people are no longer able to grow crops or their harvests dry up. As a result, children are affected by malnutrition. Some go to school in the morning without eating and fall asleep or are unable to concentrate during lessons. As a result, school results are poor and many pupils drop out during the school year. To remedy this, the children are helped with food, which is the aim of this programme.

The school feeding programme is very much welcomed by the parents and pupils of Saint Vincent de Paul School. It helps the students to concentrate on their lessons and achieve good school results. Everyone would like to see the programme continue, but it is limited by the allocated budget and can only be sustained by further donations.

The Marist Brothers would like to thank all donors for their generous support!