La Maison d’Arnaud

Providing housing and support to Madagascar's most vulnerable children, but our projects are at risk if we can't raise much needed funds! Every cent helps, please give whatever you can.

The Arnaud Guesry Foundation Community November 30, 2020 at 11:43 am
€7,815
pledged of €7,000 goal
66
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Project Ends on January/31/2021
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Project Description

General Info:

The Arnaud Guesry Foundation is a Maltese registered charity active in Northern Madagascar to help the region’s most vulnerable children. Our amazing team runs a desperately needed orphanage for children, La Maison d’Arnaud, as well as several valuable community projects in the area including a prison support project, malnutrition rehabilitation, local hot meal project and much more… Due to the current crisis impacting the world we are in desperate need of support, otherwise we’ll be forced to close. Any little bit helps…

Our primary operation is the running of our residential facility, which currently houses 30 children full time from the ages of 3 months to 12 years old. Within this program we offer the children all the support of a family home including, but not exclusive to, education, nutrition, health services and psycho-social support. Our children benefit from the care of 20 full-time members of staff at our home including nannies, cooks, security guards, teachers, volunteers, social workers and administrators. The house has a garden and keeps hens, it has access to fresh ground water and serves as a centre for the local community.

Summer School Program:

In addition to our residential program, we run a summer school to support the local curriculum in summer months, June-September, with professional teachers in both academic and extracurricular subjects. This summer program is open to our own children and up to 100 the most vulnerable children from surrounding villages (referred by the mayor and community leaders) for free. The children here are offered our regular psycho-social support, the benefits of the education, a safe place to stay while their parents are at work, medical checks and are also given a meal a day.

Prison Project:

We also work in the local prison where we provide education, healthcare and legal advocacy, wherever possible, to the inmates of the women’s section and under-18s section. We take particular responsibility for prenatal, maternal and neonatal care in the prison as well as supervision of births and child development. We offer a space in our home to any mother wishing to give temporary custody of a child currently living with her in the prison to La Maison d’Arnaud until such time as she is released and finds her feet, with the help of our social worker and administrative team.

Malnutrition Re-feeding:

In addition to the prison, we work closely with local hospital pediatric wards. We liaise with doctors when cases with social underpinnings are presented, we run a specialist malnutrition program including feeding training, support with milk and medication and, where needed, residential care in the most delicate periods of rehabilitation. We act as intermediaries between hospital services and state/judicial services and are often called upon to make recommendations or submit reports.

Crisis Relief:

We also hold several spaces (beds) in our home on reserve for crisis cases. These cases come under our local state partnerships and provide social services, police and the children’s courts with residential spaces for children with the need for specialist care and adequate security in urgent need. Examples include abandoned infants, children removed from exploitation (labor/sex work), cases of severe abuse (including neglect) or abandoned children.

We value very highly our ties to the local community and the support we provide families in their darkest moments. We try our best to provide a local, stable base for children which facilitates family visits, rehabilitation and reunification. Our operations are, at times, limited by funds and we know we could do so much more if we have the means.

COVID and 2020

Over the years we’ve made great strides in overcoming numerous barriers and hurdles to help the nurturing of the children at the Foundation. We’ve tried to introduce sustainable practices such as investing in chickens to sell eggs, and our home garden. With all the children home to help with the harvest and tend the animals and the land – it’s a sustainability project we’re really proud of – we’ve managed to produce; 80 different varieties of salads, 9K aubergines, 66K papaya, 100 k of bananas, 12 packets parsley, 72K tomatoes, 1.5 K green beans, 1k peppers, 14 packets of water cress. Our chickens are producing 83 eggs per day. However, all of this small success doesn’t make up for the losses we’ve faced this year.

Like the rest of the world COVID has put an extra strain on our resources, among other things, our funding resources. Our home garden keeps our kitchen running but our staff need extra support to be able to come to work safely and continue to care for our children. We are trying our best to navigate our way through these tough times, but the hard realisation is setting in, that if we don’t manage to secure a serious injection of funds, we will soon be forced to close the Orphanage.

That means that these 30 + children would be shipped over 1,500km away and lose all contact with family and community. Our organisation was founded on the premise that one person, one family, can make a difference. We still rely on that belief; that each person can contribute to the reduction of inequality and the irradiation of global poverty.

There are so many ways you can help us and each one makes a difference. You can sponsor a child, or a nanny or a program. You can volunteer for us. You can donate to us. You can fundraise for us. We need € 20,000 to get us through this tough period. Every single donation makes a difference. Please give what you can and we guarantee that every cent goes directly to Madagascar and the children.

We are a very small charity. Even following us on social media and sharing our posts can bring us to the attention of a wider audience. That can be all it takes to let the right person see what we can do.

NB- Funds will be received by the charity whether the target is reached or not. Every donation will make a difference to La Maison d’Arnaud and the community we support. Please give whatever you can today.

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Project FAQ

  • Why Madagascar?

Madagascar is the world's 9th poorest country and it scores particularly low on child development markers. Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world and over 80% of the population live on less than $1 per day. Madagascar is a country marred by increasing poverty, a trend which has been reflected in high rates of illiteracy (over 30%) and child mortality (10% prior to age 5) (Waeber, 2009). The situation for children in Madagascar has become increasingly difficult since the 2009 coup after which many international development agencies pulled their support (US Embassy, 2011).

Children are often needed to work in a country so undermined by poverty and are found working in fields such as agriculture, mining, tourism and the sex trade.

We know our small budget could go a long way in Madagascar and that our modest organization could make a big difference to some of the world's most vulnerable children. We have integrated seamlessly into the community and really believe that we chose the perfect place to call our second home.

  • How much of my money really goes to Madagascar?

100%. The Arnaud Guesry Foundation relies on volunteers, pro-bono service providers and the skills and talents of our friends and family to make ends meet in Europe. All our fundraising, marketing, administration, accounting and legal work that happens in Malta is done for free by an incredible and awe-inspiring community of supporters. That means that absolutely 100% of the donations you give us will go directly to Madagascar to cover operational costs and will not be spend on overheads or administration anywhere else.

  • I'm not sure about residential care for children? Why is this needed?

Honestly we wish that residential care for children wasn't needed. The fact is that in some cases it is- sometimes for a short-medium term and sometimes a little longer. It is our goal and our priority to rehabilitate families and return children to their communities. In order to do that children who need temporary care for their heath or safety need to be kept in the region, close to their families and part of the solution for family reunification.

Children in Madagascar may be removed from homes as a result of exposure to exploitation through child labour, with children forced to work to contribute to family incomes, or inappropriate domestic responsibilities. Both the above examples of neglect and exploitation can often be traced back to the fast expanding ‘deep poverty’ being experienced by Malagasy families in recent years (Deluanay & Germain, 2012).

Children are also sent to residential facilities in Madagascar in the place of punitive punishment such as prison sentences. The rise in poverty has in turn led to an increase in children being brought before tribunals accused of petty crimes such as the theft of food from markets, shops and neighbours as well as their involvement in illegal activities (such as prostitution and stealing) in an attempt to contribute to family income. Should the court see fit, short sentences for children can be carried out in secure residential centres rather than state prisons.

The seizure of children based on findings of child abuse has also increased since the beginning of the Madagascar political crisis, with sexual abuse and rape being among the most prominent issues (US Embassy, 2011). In 2011 a study found that, in a six-month period of the 353 victims of sexual abuse who presented for treatment at a local hospital 339 of those victims were under the age of 18.

Sex tourism has also been increasing in Madagascar since the beginning of the coup. It is in the coastal cities that the industry is most prolific and a recent study by UNICEF found that between 30-50% of sex workers were minors (US Embassy, 2011).

There is a particular under-supply of residential facilities for abandoned, orphaned or at-risk children. Adoption is often not an option for residential facilities due to the high percentage of judicial rather than orphan cases. This leads to greater need for long-term residential centres as well as investment by government and centres in separation prevention and family reunification strategies (Deluanay & Germain, 2012).

  • Who runs the project?

It was one of our main goals to have a fully local staff running our projects in Madagascar and with that we have succeeded. We have 22 full time members of staff in Madagascar, from gardeners and cooks, laundry women and cleaners to nannies and educators, a nurse, a social worker and our Director. This local team manage the day to day work in the house and at all the community projects. In Malta local mother-daughter team Christina and Laura Lejman run the NGO including fundraising, finance, NGO compliance and so on. The international Board of Directors supports from as far away from the UK and Switzerland on communications and strategy. All this is underpinned by a network of volunteers who help in a multitude of ways, from visiting the house, offering medical advice, running fundraising activities and much more.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and it certainly takes a global community to raise 30!

  • Why should I support a project overseas?

There are so many incredible organizations who support vulnerable children and adults in Malta and we are great admirers of our strong community of local NGOs. However, The Arnaud Guesry Foundation was born with the express intent of creating a Maltese hand to reach out across the world to reach those most in need and find ways to create bridges and change lives. We were determined to create a project that would make a difference to global development by giving children an opportunity to thrive and grow into educated and motivated adults who will change and shape their communities and the lives of the generations that follow.

In addition to this we knew that as one family our financial contributions would be modest, but in Madagascar those modest contributions go so much further than they would here. Our budget stretches much further and we're able to implement more programming that reaches more children and wider communities. If you donate to us your funding will make a huge impact on a community so very much in need.

  • How can I help?

Of course we always need funding. Any donation you can make will make a significant difference to our team. Just 10 Euros can feed a child for a week! If you're looking for a way to become a member of our global family you can think about sponsoring a child- the cost is 300 Euros per year (25 Euros per month) and although the money goes toward the general costs for all the children, you'll be able to communicate directly with one of our residents who will practice their writing and English skills on you, or in the case of our little ones, their questionable artistic talents.

However, if donations are not a possibility for you at the moment you can always just send us a message and ask to be added to our mailing list, follow us on social media and share our activities and campaigns! Once COVID is no longer an issue we also accept volunteers (alone or in groups) to work on specific projects and special activities at our home.

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