Partnership Ref.:	MAD02a
Commenced:	14/09/2020
Funding Status:	Completed - Self-sustaining
Partnership Type:	Micro-enterprise / Micro-loans, Community / Agriculture Development, Orphans & Vulnerable Children
Funding Size:	$0 - $2,999
Annual Budget:	US$ 0
Connected To:	MAD01 , MAD02

Partnership Overview

The support of emerging Christian leaders with Operation Mobilization (OM) is the key objective of this project. Without the ability to create a local base for supporting key people, this program will always struggle to survive. Even though the leaders are quite young there are opportunities for this to work. It is not uncommon for both male and female young people to have their own animals. The barrier is being able to get the initial animals as many of the families have huge numbers of children as men have multiple wives. Children are under severe pressure to drop out of school to assist their families economically by herding the cattle or the girls are married off so they cease to be an economic burden. This project will give young people much more control of their own destiny.

Southern Madagascar is the poorest, spiritually darkest part of Madagascar but it is here that a group of leading young people is emerging from the work of OM in this area. This program will help young people obtain a herd or flock of small animals to help them become self-sustaining and be able to continue their education and leadership of fledgling Christian groups.  

Stage 1 is to help the existing nine leaders obtain some small animals as the start of a herd or flock. They will repay the bank as the animals reproduce. These animals will then be given out to other emerging young leaders.

Stage 2 is to boost the fund so more animals can be purchased for distribution and new leaders can be brought into the team. 

History of Partnership

Since 2012 OM, in partnership with Bright Hope World, has had a micro-loan project in Antananaraivo which proved to be very successful (MAD01). OM Madagascar learned a lot from this initial project and subsequently developed a plan to commence a development project into the Androy region which was commenced in mid-2014 (MAD02). BHW has maintained a relationship with the OM team here and in late 2018 the BHW partnership facilitators visited. It was obvious that there was a need to support the emerging team but that it would be best to do that from within the country and local community. Discussions we held and the team was given the task of developing a plan. 

This area has some major limitations in terms of agriculture. This is an arid area with low rainfall, there is little ground water and what water there is, is saline and not potable or able to be used for agriculture. People use ground water for drinking and cooking and water borne diseases cause much illness and death. 

The second phase of the plan saw BHW personnel visiting in September 2019 to assess the potential and carry out the first Foundations for Farming training. A long term plan was developed to follow up this visit, however the subsequent trip in March 2020 was unable to be undertaken due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this it has been encouraging to see good initial results here even though the conditions are semi-arid. 

The OM team subsequently come back to BHW with a proposal to assist nine of their young people to purchase a flock of goats each. It would be their responsibility to manage their flock and to grow it. Each flock has the potential to make each person self-sustaining. The commencement of the project has been delayed because of COVID and the fact that people have not been allowed to move about. However, in October 2020 the first phase will commence. If and when this is successful, the second phase will be initiated in 2021, to increase the number of animals and people involved. 

Beneficiaries

The initial beneficiaries are the nine young people in the current leadership group:

Tsiverilaza is 22 years old. She was a child bride but was then divorced by the husband. She has one boy. Tsiverilaza dropped out of school at grade 9 and now wants to go back to school. She discovered faith in Jesus during the 2019 youth camp. She wants to help girls subject to forced marriage.

Mosa is 18 years old and finished school in grade 9. He discovered his faith in Jesus at the 2019 youth camp and is leading a youth cell group in his village.

Mara 17 years old and has only gone to grade 8 at school. He loves sharing the Gospel with his friends. 

Sylvain is 22 and is a youth leader. He is farming with his father and loves sharing the Gospel with his friends.

Kazy is 18 and is an assistant youth cell group leader.

Nesefa is 19 years old and dropped out of school because the parents could no longer afford the fees. They want to go back to school.

Zilitsoa is 17 years old, goes to school and also leads a village cell prayer group along with being an assistant youth leader. 

Jean is 20. He works in Ambovombe, is a gifted song writer and helps leading the youth.

Sinorie is 19 years old, a youth leader and village cell group leader (her story can be read below).  

What We Like About The Partnership

We have worked successfully with these people in the past.
The first group is already established and they have come up with a workable plan.
We have good lines of communication with the key person.
One of their key people in situ is already doing this successfully.

 

Key People

Leadership Profile    

Fara is part of the OM Madagascar Androy team and grew up in Antananarivo. She had been working in a garment factory but resigned from her job after she received her calling into mission. Her heart for the unreached people made her commit to work in Androy after her mission training with OM Madagascar in 2012. She has been trained to teach adult literacy. She has a long term vision to work amongst the Antandroy people as she says "I will be here until I see lasting fruit, multiplication and ownership of the work by local people". She is working with other team members in the South and alongside the local church leaders. 

Other People Involved

Hanrita (the key person for MAD01) oversees the team from within the country.  

 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

To establish a strong economic base for the local young leaders of this movement so it can flourish without external economic inputs. The dream is to see a strong Christian community developed in this area of Southern Madagascar that is free from the very negative aspects of their culture. 

Strategy

The team in this area has just made a foothold and are beginning to see results after a number of years of work in the area. They have established small groups in a number of villages and quite a number of young people are beginning to respond. The leaders of the young people are the first beneficiaries of the proposed project. They are a team of nine and they come from various villages in the area. 

In their culture, cows are adult business but children can have their own chickens, sheep or goats. They will be given female goats, sheep or chickens which they will rear. They will pay back into the livestock bank and these will then be given to other people. 

 

Personal Testimony

Sinorie 

Sinorie is 19 years old. Her mother was 15 when Sinorie was born. She has four sisters and four brothers. Her father's third wife is younger than her.  

Sinorie was a child bride at 14 years of age. When she got married her husband involved her in witchcraft. Sinorie suffered with demon possession and had many visions of demons in her head causing her to not see properly as they blurred her vision. Sometimes they struck her down and she would be thrown to the ground. She was very fearful and anxious and always had to have someone with her. 

One day the OM team visited her village and she heard a lady share her testimony. This was the first time she had heard about God. She wanted to know more about God and she became a Christian. When she told her husband she did not want to do witchcraft anymore he was very angry because he had given the witchdoctor a lot of money. Sinorie threw away her necklace from the witchdoctor. Her life changed completely and she had no more bad dreams tormenting her.

At first her husband was supportive but he became angry because she was spending too much time going to other villages sharing the Gospel. He said "I married you to look after me". So he returned her to her parents. Her parents welcomed her home and were very thankful she was healed and not with her in-laws who had been persecuting her.

Sinorie stays in town with the OM team as she is doing an internship but makes regular visits back to her village. She loves reading her Bible. She has been doing sewing classes and would like to own her own sewing machine so she can have her own business.

Some of her dreams are to see her culture redeemed and changed. This would include the reduction of funeral costs as when a person dies the family has to sell everything to pay for the funeral and feed the crowd. She wants to see child bride traditions stopped and all children able to attend school. She is also concerned about the challenge of families that are too large, they become very poor and are marginalized.