Children Are the Future of Our World
Dear friends of SEED,
My name is Gerard Haussmann, and I am writing to you not just as a member of SEED’s Environment team, but as someone born and raised in the Anosy region of southeast Madagascar. This year has been an incredibly difficult one for communities here. When the land cannot give, families are left with impossible choices. Illness rises as nutrition drops. When the weather changes and crops fail, as they too often do, no one is spared. Some days, meals are nothing more than cassava (tapioca) or rice. Some days, there is nothing at all.
This year, we have launched our ‘'Let it Grow’' Christmas Appeal to give communities a way forward—to rebuild strength, restore their land, and support their children. Many of the communities I work with rely almost entirely on their own crops to survive. Over the past year, I have seen just how hard climate shocks have hit families, leaving them with nothing to sell, nothing to store, and often nothing to eat.
Many children in rural communities are unable to continue their education past primary school due to financial pressures or household responsibilities. This is why this project matters so deeply to me. It strengthens families now, while building knowledge that children will rely on long after they leave the classroom.
I often say, “Children are the future of our world,” and here in the southeast, that future depends on what they understand about their land, their environment, and the knowledge they gain early on. This is what makes our agroforestry sites so meaningful.
By giving children practical training in sustainable agriculture while they are still young and engaged in school, we are helping them build a livelihood they can rely on for the rest of their lives. With these techniques, they are learning to grow diverse vegetables year-round—something once unthinkable. These are crops they can eat, crops they can sell, and crops that can sustain their families through even the hardest seasons.
I have watched students rush to the garden after class to tend the crops they planted with their teachers. Parents tell us how encouraged they feel as they see their land producing far more than they ever imagined. And I have stood beside farmers learning techniques that restore their soils and allow them to grow food year-round, even as the climate becomes more unpredictable.
When people begin to see that their land can thrive, hope returns. Now, nearby communities are asking for this project in their schools. The momentum is here. What we need now is the support to expand.
This Christmas, I am asking for your help to make that possible.
With your support, our Let it Grow appeal will build two new agroforestry sites at SEED-built schools, plant more than 15,000 crops, provide over 53,000 meals, and plant 3,200 trees that restore land and protect soil—reaching more than 10,000 people.
These are thousands of small steps toward a stronger, healthier, more hopeful future for children and families.
Thank you for believing in this work and for standing with our communities.
Misaotra betsaka (Thank you very much),
Gerard Haussmann
Environment Programme Coordinator
SEED Madagascar