Responsible Tourism Awards 2009
> Community Support

Community Support

Our outreach programmes in Madagascar help local communities through school funding, family planning education and promoting sustainable use of resources.

Poverty often leaves communities with no alternative but to overexploit their natural resources. Uncontrolled population growth also threatens the health of ecosystems.

Through a variety of community programmes, we're working to improve the living and working conditions of villages in Madagascar that in turn will promote sustainable resource management and lead to a more stable environment.

Health

Population, health and environment, Madagascar

Madagascar, amongst the ‘hottest of the hot’ global biodiversity hotspots, exhibits exceptional concentrations of endemic species gravely threatened by devastating loss of habitat.

The country also has one of the world’s fastest growing populations, with an average fertility rate of over 5 births per woman and nearly half of the country’s population currently under fifteen years of age. Only one in five women in union has access to contraception despite government programmes to promote family planning.

In the remote coastal regions where Blue Ventures operates, access to sexual and reproductive health services is even more difficult. As a result, some girls as young as eleven have had children, and women are having up to 16 children. Infant and maternal mortality figures are high. The rapid growth of coastal populations, whose doubling time is approximately 10-15 years, poses a severe threat to the future sustainability of the country’s extensive coral reefs and other marine habitats, upon which the livelihoods, culture and future economic wellbeing of coastal communities depend.

 

Read more: Health

Sponsor a Schoolchild

Help some of Madagascar’s poorest children gain the education they need to improve their lives and their communities.

The fishing villages along Madagascar’s southwest coast are some of the poorest communities on Earth. They have no electricity, no running water, and most villagers have never had a formal education and cannot read or write.

Read more: Sponsor a Schoolchild

Clean energy

We use carbon offset funding from our volunteers to provide fuel-efficient and solar stoves to communities in the Andavadoaka region. Traditionally, villages rely upon open wood fires for cooking. These fires emit high levels of carbon dioxide and because of the reliance on wood fuel, lead to local deforestation. In addition, smoke from the open fires leads to respiratory illnesses.

The fuel-efficient and solar stoves not only benefit local environments, but also help improve the health of local villages. We've also taught locals to build and sell the stoves, creating a sustainable source of income. For more information, please visit Blue Ventures Carbon Offset.