Thanks to the support of the City of Paris as part of the Solidae call for projects and the French Development Agency (AFD), the agricultural colleges of Ambalavao and Ambondromisotra each have a new drinking water supply installation since the beginning of 2021. In a context of increasingly difficult climatic conditions, this installation allows them to answer to the water needs of the colleges, even in the dry season.

Fekama

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The agricultural colleges of Ambalavao and Ambondromisotra are among the five colleges of the Fekama federation, a member of the Fifata group. Through the establishment of agricultural colleges, Fifata and Fekama aim for family and professional agriculture through the training of young people, daughters and sons of farmers. Fekama’s main mission is to define and implement the general policy of agricultural colleges, to create new ones in other regions as well as to represent and defend the interests of its members at the national level.

Due to the drying up of the source supplying the water network to which it was attached, the college of Ambalavao suffered from a lack of water in the dry season for two years. The situation was similar for the college of Ambondromisotra following the destruction of the dam allowing the filling of the canal where it drew its water.

Financial support from the City of Paris and the French Development Agency made it possible to dig a borehole in the two colleges and install a solar pumping device. New standpipes have been put in place, lightening the load on students for watering market gardening plots. At Ambalavao college, a water tower was built, while at Ambondromisotra, the existing water tower was renovated. The new reception building for short courses, created with the support of the Formaprod program in Ambondromisotra, is also now supplied with water.

The benefits of this access to drinking water in Ambalavao and Ambondromisotra

  • Formation

    • Fetching water every morning tired the students and hurt their concentration. From now on, the pupils are in better conditions to follow the lesson.

  • Sanitation and health

    • The health and hygiene of the students have been improved thanks to the easy and permanent access to water.
    • Having several standpipes in strategic places reduces the time required for water supply and ensures access to a greater number.

  • Social

    • The standpipes are also accessible to local residents, in a regulated manner. They can thus benefit from easier access to drinking water all year round.
    • In Ambondromisotra, the reduction in water flow in the canal may have generated usage conflicts. As the college no longer gets its water from this canal, the water is available for other users and makes relations more fluid.

  • Farm

    • A wider range of market garden products can now be grown all year round, thus allowing better nutrition for students and better feeding of animals on the educational farm.
    • The production of fruit and forest tree seedlings is now possible all year round and contributes to reforestation operations.
    • Cultivated land has increased by around 30 ares in agro-ecology.
    • Each year, in Ambalavao, 50% of the rice fields were poorly irrigated or even dried up. The installation of a water inlet channel from a standpipe has made it possible to significantly increase the number of irrigated rice fields.
    • A standpipe is located near the breeding workshops. This saves students time for watering animals and maintaining buildings.
    • In Ambalavao, 3 new fish ponds have been created.

The company BushProof, which carried out the work, trained the trainers in the maintenance of the installations in order to ensure their sustainability. Students’ awareness are regularly raised as part of the training but also during their learning about civic life. The preservation and management of water resources as well as the practice of good gestures in terms of water use are at the heart of their training.