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
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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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