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Supporting Dalefasoa’s Education in Madagascar Starts With a Meal

on  June 16, 2022

258 million children around the world are unable to enroll in school, and UNICEF reported in 2021 that nearly 40% of school-aged children in Eastern and Southern Africa weren’t attending school. Information like this underscores the importance of International Day of the African Child. Recognized annually on June 16, this holiday commemorates the Soweto Uprising in 1976 when thousands of black school children in Soweto, South Africa, protested for their right to quality education. International Day of the African Child now raises awareness of the need to improve education — and access to it — for all African children. Education plays an important role in food security. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #4 of quality education is interwoven with all of the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal #2 of zero hunger, for achieving a sustainable and equitable future. Rise Against Hunger is dedicated to increasing access to education through school feeding programs. School feeding programs encourage school attendance and improve attentiveness and performance — all of which 14-year-old Dalefasoa and her father have witnessed firsthand. Dalefasoa lives in a small village in southern Madagascar’s Ampanihy Ouest district. She and one of her five sisters are the only children in their family to attend school. But during a drought last year, Dalefasoa missed a lot of school to assist with farming and chores. Southern Madagascar already faced high rates of chronic malnutrition, and the drought exacerbated food insecurity for many families in the district, including Dalefasoa’s. She would journey with her siblings to another village to collect food for their family as part of a food distribution program there. Her father, Tsangamana, knew his daughter’s education was important and, therefore, didn’t want her to continue needing to venture to another community for food. Therefore, in March 2021, he volunteered to be the president of the School Feeding Committee for the local school. Rise Against Hunger partners with Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) on the Southern Africa School Feeding Initiative to increase access to food in schools and improve educational performance in the communities served. Through this initiative, ADRA operates school feeding to support 103 schools in Madagascar’s Ampanihy Ouest district. Rise Against Hunger supports the school feeding by providing ADRA Madagascar with cash grants for local procurement of food. By taking on the School Feeding Committee role for Dalefasoa’s school, her father ensures all of the students are fed through the school canteen. Aurélie, the project coordinator, explained that the students eat twice a day and the meals encourage parents to send their children to school. In Madagascar, only one in three children complete primary education — but school feeding programs can help change that. Through the Southern Africa School Feeding Initiative, school attendance rates have increased and rates of malnutrition have decreased. And now that Dalefasoa no longer has to go to another village for food, she is focused on obtaining her diploma to become a teacher, which will help even more children complete their education in the future.It starts with a meal, and it leads to education and the opportunity for bright futures. In honor of International Day of the African Child, give today to support education for children — like Dalefasoa — in Africa and around the world.

About the Author

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.