Dedications
A dedication in a loved one’s name can be a very touching and meaningful tribute.
You could make a dedication in-celebration of a special occasion, such as a birthday, a wedding, or even just for a unique spontaneous gift.
Dedication can also be made in-memory as a lasting tribute to a loved one who has passed away. In memory dedications can be an effective way to honour a great life, and add to their legacy, by creating positive change into the future.
If you are interested in making a dedication for a loved one there are many options that we would be delighted to discuss. A dedication can take the form of a brass plaque and a locally held ceremony. SEED can provide pictures and a video for others to share in your dedication and we would be delighted to report on the progress of the project as a whole. Coming out to Madagascar is also an option, and we’d be delighted to facilitate a visit to the site of a dedication.
A dedication that you may wish to consider is within our Educational Infrastructure Programme. As an example, Project Sekoly: Tsagnoriha is typical of the 35 schools that SEED have built in the last decade. It focusses on a remote and impoverished rural community, and will renovate an existing school, while constructing an entirely new, two-classroom building. The current school is greatly overcrowded with just one classroom being shared between 188 students and 7 teachers. This has resulted in a large waiting list and the majority of students only being able to study for half days. The project goes well beyond the education infrastructure itself by supplying all the furniture, water supply, handwashing and sanitation infrastructure, facilities for the teachers and loads of health-based education.
By dedicating a component of a school project your donation will be supporting hundreds of children in their education, health and wellbeing into the future.
Below are the some of the different elements to the school that you may wish to consider dedicating.
Examples of dedications
Dedicate a handwashing station (£500):
It may seem incredible, but many schools are built in Madagascar without handwashing stations for the children to wash their hands in. SEED always builds handwashing facilities for students and these are equipped with ‘behavioural nudges’ (for example, educational signs), which will normalise handwashing behaviour amongst the children. Handwashing is vital for hygiene and safety reasons, and with the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is more essential than ever to help educate children to the benefits of handwashing.
If you would like to dedicate a handwashing station to your loved one, it would cost £500. This covers all material and labour costs and a portion of the associated educational work. Your loved one would be ensuring that all future children attending the school are taught about the benefits of handwashing and have access to handwashing facilities.
Dedicate a rainwater harvesting station (£1,300):
Clean drinking water in schools is vital to the health of the children attending. SEED provides two 5,000 litre water tanks fed by a rainwater harvesting system on the roof of each of the new schools it builds. This system will give the children and teachers access to clean, safe drinking water and will potentially also support the wider community with safe water.
Globally, Madagascar is the 3rd lowest country in the use of unimproved sources of water and the use of basic sanitation (UNICEF, 2014), putting the residents at a high risk of illness and disease. Having access to clean water means students and staff alike can focus on learning in a safe environment. To sponsor one of the rainwater harvesting stations, the cost will be £1,300. This will cover all labour and material and related education costs. It would also ensure that all present and future staff and students have access to clean, safe drinking water.
Dedicate furniture for the school buildings and teachers houses (£3,000):
A crucial way of benefitting a child’s learning is by ensuring that they are taught in an environment which is comfortable and compatible to learning. Many schools in Madagascar do not have adequate furniture with children having to sit on cold stone floors. This creates a further disincentive for children not attending school and contributes to the statistic that 50% of school aged children in Anosy Region in the region have never been to school.
SEED furnish classrooms, with spacious desks and benches, and also provide furnishings for the teacher’s home, supporting their livelihood, encouraging quality teaching, and helping to reduce teacher absenteeism.
By dedicating furniture for the school buildings and teachers' houses for £3,000 to a loved one, they would be helping to ensure that the children receive the highest quality education possible.
Make a dedication for the refurbishment of an existing school building (£7,500):
The refurbishment of the traditional, badly maintained and often falling down two-classroom buildings consists of ensuring that the walls are repaired, holes in the roof fixed and the space inside updated. This update of the old infrastructure is essential in creating a safe work environment for the students. Currently, many school buildings leak during heavy rainfall, continually disrupting the children’s lessons and impeding their learning.
If you would like these refurbishments to be dedicated to your loved one, they would ensure that the children’s learning is no longer disrupted by the region’s inevitable heavy rainfall, directly contributing to the quality of hundreds of children’s education in the future. The cost of this meaningful dedication would be £7,500. This covers all material, labour and related education costs.
Dedicate a latrine and menstrual hygiene facility (£8,500):
Within a school building project such as Tsagnoriha, unless there are already adequate facilities SEED often builds new sex-separated latrines and a menstrual hygiene facility, contained within the girls’ bathroom. By dedicating this to your loved one, you will be providing the girls with the space to ensure safe hygiene practices, allowing them to maintain their dignity and preventing them from missing school. This will help build their confidence and increase comfort, enhancing their overall learning experience.
A dedication to this cause would cost £8,500. This cost would cover all material and labour costs, and additionally would cover the costs of training all of the teachers to deliver an enhanced WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene) curriculum. This curriculum would also include information on using the menstrual hygiene facility, and creating reusable sanitary pads for female students. By supporting us, your loved one would be responsible for directly ensuring that the students have adequate and safe facilities as well as WASH practices being dispersed among the wider community, promoting hygiene and in reducing disease.
Dedicate a Classroom (£9,000):
Part of the Tsagnoriha school project is the construction of a school building which will house two classrooms. We are giving the opportunity to dedicate a classroom in someone’s name. By choosing to dedicate a classroom, you would ensure that hundreds of children will be able to learn in a safe and functional environment, allowing them to succeed in their education. It has long been established that education is a key driving factor in the reduction of poverty, so in choosing to dedicate a classroom in the name of your loved one, you would ensure that they are also at the forefront of the battle against poverty in one of the poorest countries on earth.
To dedicate a classroom would cost £9,000, which would cover the cost of all labour, materials and related education costs.
Dedicate a Teacher’s House (£10,000):
Within this project, SEED will construct accommodation for the teaching staff at the school. This will house the headteacher and their family along with two other members of the teaching staff. This is an essential facility in providing the children with access to a high standard of teaching. The teachers house will help to ensure that the school attracts quality teaching staff, reducing teacher absenteeism, whilst supporting their livelihoods by providing them with not only shelter, but also WASH facilities.
The teachers house can be dedicated for a cost of £10,000. This cost would cover all labour and material costs, ensuring that the teachers have a safe and comfortable home to help them provide excellent education for the students.
Dedicate a whole school facility (£50,000):
You may wish to dedicate a whole school project, including all of the elements mentioned above. A typical project of this type would include an entirely new school building with two classrooms, a water supply and sanitation facilities, housing and facilities to help retain teachers, renovation of any existing infrastructure, and the inclusion of health and well-being education within the school teaching programme. The dedication of a whole school facility would help deliver a stable education to hundreds of children in the surrounding local communities, directly contributing to poverty reduction in the area.
What to do next?
If you have read the above information and would like to consider this further then we would love to hear from you!
You can email Mark Jacobs (SEED Managing Director) at mark@seedmadagascar.org and he will be happy to arrange a consultation to talk through the possibilities and answer any questions.
Arrange a consultation to find out more