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My friends Tim and Maz run a course which has the potential to transform Madagascar and the world: http://walkersofhope.blogspot.com/. I met them when I flew back to Madagascar in September 2016…we found ourselves sitting next to each other on the plane!

One of the key points of their ‘leadership for life course’  is that everybody should be a leader, at least in their own life. Many Malagasy complain about things yet do nothing to improve things. Tim and Maz’s course identifies seven ‘poverty mindsets’ that holds people back from succeeding, and helps attendees adopt leadership mindsets instead.

Tim and Maz, leadership taster session at my course in the capital. Tim is hiding…

At the end, trainees are asked to identify something that needs changing in their community, and ‘fix it’. Trainees have some great projects, small and large:

• A lady saw kids in her neighbourhood who can’t go to school because they don’t have stationary and uniforms. She met with the kids parents and donated her old uniforms and bought exercise books.
• Many Christians including church leaders are illiterate. They can’t read the Bible so their teaching is based on what they are told not what the Bible says. Lili will distribute MP3 CD new testaments (£0.10 each), micro SD card new testaments (£2.50). Almost every village in Madagascar has a phone with SD card slot or MP3 CD player. And any cyber cafe can copy a SD card or CD.
• Some projects from my vaza friends (not trainees): https://theschabens.wordpress.com/; https://royalrangersnosybe.wordpress.com/; https://www.facebook.com/helpmg/

And…you too can change the world…let me know what you get up to!

What have I been up to?

Jan – March

• Trained 124 teachers (80 basic course; 25 second course; 14 trainers; 5 science teachers). Positive feedback as always, read some here.
• My trainers trained 23 teachers for the basic course.
• I’ve made significant changes to the book including an extra chapter on phonics. I think we have the first work on Malagasy phonics.
• The trainers guide for the basic course has been significantly clarified and improved.
• We observed in many schools and provided feedback to teachers and headteachers.

April – June

• 2 weeks holiday, hiking in the volcanoes in the Island of the Dodo and travelling with a friend in Madagascar.

Hiking in a former volcano, La Reunion

• Trained in a small school run by a missionary in Nosy Be.
• Trained 31 Ministry of Education and NGO staff in the capital (with about 40 more planned). Some feedback from the training here.

Ministry of Education Training, Antananarivo

• My trainers are training approximately 40 local teachers and rapidly improving in the quality of their training.
• I expect to train around 10 more staff on L1, 50 L2 and a number of extra trainers.
• Preparing the organisation to be self-sufficient when I depart.
• Final tweaks to the trainers guide and book.
• A handful of observations.

Post June:

I’m heading home for a while. While I’m there I’ll:

• Take some time to re-enter into western culture.
• Visit friends and family.
• Continue to work and develop the project, including practical science.
• Plan to return to support the project once a year
• Find some part time/supply work.
• Promote the resources across the development community. What makes them special is they are very practical and suitable for basic classrooms. Much pedagogy material is very abstract, theoretical which doesn’t work with African teachers.

How can you help me?

• Do you know any paid job in international education development or science teaching that might fit me. Looking for part time right now as will still have a significant amount of project work to do.
• Do you want to continue to support the project after June? I will be still paying my country director and have an annual visit to Madagascar – perhaps you can help cover those?
• Perhaps we will setup as a charity. Would you consider being a trustee? Or maybe we should join an existing charity?
• Do you know any charities or organisations that may find our training resources useful?
• Pray for me and the project.
• Find a successful pioneer project (not a large charity, just a guy doing something new and adventurous on their own), and support them financially or practically. Everyone I know who does pioneer ‘projects’ suffers from a lack of funding…contrasted with those working for the big NGOs who have a good salary…
  

  Cyclo pousse carrying foam. One of the better paid manual labour jobs in the country (£2-5/day), riders come from all over the country to work in my city.

I observe teachers and provide feedback as part of our program. One day we were observing on the edge of town. Finding the school was a challenge because of no signs and it’s location in the back streets down some dirt roads, but the street sellers and children directed me in the right way.

Walking in the gates was a surprise. The teachers were excellent on the training course, and I was expecting a ‘posh’ school with a few 4x4s dropping kids off and a stream of pousse pousses (cycle rickshaws).

On arrival we found all the children walk to school and the well kept classrooms consist of simple benches and desks for 60-80 students and a large blackboard. There was a library, a school laptop and printer.

As usual the teachers put on a ‘show’ for the visitors, however it was clear that the children were getting a good education by local standards and many of the ideas from our recent course were being put into practise.

Chatting to the head he told me the fees are 5000 Ariary (£1.25) month. And he proudly told us the school is 100% self sufficient and pay their teachers a fair salary. I was astonished. With around 12 classes in the school that means their entire income is around £750/month. This income pays the 14 staff, looks after their buildings and is paying for the construction of a new classroom. There are no cleaners (children clean the school as part of their duties), and occasionally there are breaks in the school year for children to deep clean the classrooms…

In Tamatave most private schools charge much more yet seem no better.  The director commented ‘if your heart is not for money than you can do a lot with very little’. Sorry no photos as local law means it is unwise to publish photos of children in schools.

Science teaching here is very theoretical. Part of my project is developing practical science resources in schools with zero resources and money. Some examples of practicals we have shown teachers:

• Making electric circuits using household and motorbike components. (cost £1-2 for components, reusable)
  

  Electric circuit building using local components

• We demonstrated a red cabbage indicator (that changes from pink in an acid to green in an alkali) – teachers were unbelievably excited. (cost 25p for part of a red cabbage)
• Using Archimedes principle to measure the mass of a floating object. (cost: zero, using medicine measuring cup and any floatable object)
• Making a measuring cylinder out of a plastic water bottle (cost:5p)

A simple balance using marbles weighed at a jewellry shop as weights

Electrolysis of sodium chloride using electrodes from batteries and red cabbage as an indicator

• Rolling a marble down a ramp and then horizontally off a table. Use carbon paper to mark the impact position. Many calculations can be made to do with the projectile motion, resulting in the calculation of the time of flight, initial horizontal velocity, kinetic energy, change in potential energy, work done by friction and average frictional force. Cost: 10p
• Observing the rate of reaction of sulphuric acid (car battery acid) with different metals. Zinc is extracted from batteries, aluminium from a drinks can and an iron nail is used. Cost: 50p
• Collapsing can demo. (use a discarded beer/soda can – free, cost: 3p for charcoal)
• Heroes engine using a coke can. (2000Ar, £0.50 for the can, reusable, 3p for charcoal)

So…do we really need complicated expensive things in life??

(In case you are wondering, this week we have graduations, and after a brief holiday the main ‘modern teaching methods’ courses will start again, this time delivered by local trainers. More on that in another post. Pray all the good plans for the future come to fruition…)

Today saw the founding run of Toamasina Hash House Harriers. It was a run unlike any other in the world, through delightful local villages, past a mountaintop church in the foothills of Toamasina returning on the same trail we entered.

Buying bananas in a village

Starting at 2pm we carefully laid the trail, placing strips of paper on the grass verges along the route. Many locals were curious, what were we doing and why? Some begged to be given these slips of paper and were over the moon with their present.

On the way out we realised we had a problem. We caught some children collecting our strips of scrap paper and coming back along the ‘in’ trail could only a few papers remained.

Jackfruit

Luckily the turnout was poor so we had a guided walk in the bush rather than a proper ‘hash’. On the way a local pousse pousse (cycle rickshaw) driver joined us and talked incessantly about teaching in Malagasy. How did he know I was a teacher? Eventually I saw a strip of paper I’d laid earlier in his hands, he was reading part of my shredded teaching book!

Moral of the story: Use flour and hash where there aren’t villages…

Regarding the real reason I’m here…this week we began training about 50 teachers on the ‘Modern teaching methods 1’ course, 20 teachers on the ‘Modern teaching methods 2’ course and around about 10 trainers. I’m very excited about the trainers course.

While numbers are not huge I’m happy to have a very enthusiastic and motivated group of teachers, and smaller numbers mean we can invest more in individual teachers through observation and mentoring.

So I thought I’d try and write more, shorter posts when I have something interesting to share. Does that work for you or did you prefer the longer ones?