Madagascar

Location: This project is located on the outskirts of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, the third poorest country in the world.

​

Program start date: 2022

Date of partnership with SOLIBAD: 2022

Number of children/families reached: Approximately 50 children for the first phase in early 2022.

Amount invested by Solibad in this program: €4,000 in 2022

The program in details :

​

This project, in partnership with the association 2400sourires, aims to restore the dignity of children in Madagascar's most disadvantaged rural villages and street children and to help them rebuild their lives through sport - specifically badminton.

We have teamed up with our wonderful friends at 2400sourires, who have a local presence and are implementing a major program to help street children, with a strong emphasis on sport. At the beginning of 2022, the association was already working with destitute children in the village of Ambohidratrimo, near the site where the land for the construction of the "Village of Smiles" will be acquired in mid-2022. This village will be home to the capital's street children - 2,400 of whom, according to local statistics, sleep without a roof over their heads every day.

Solibad started the program in February 2022, setting up badminton sessions for the children served by the 2400 Smiles partner community. The sessions were an incredible success with children who had never held a racket in their hands, and very quickly the many traumas seemed to melt away in the space of a few hours. Badminton was played every day in the middle of rice fields, just a few weeks after the devastation caused by the cyclone and floods, in addition to the frequent family dramas in this rural area, particularly affected by poverty and insalubrity, with no direct access to drinking water. 

​

A strong partnership has therefore been established between the 2400 Sourires Association and Solibad, to continue this activity, which goes far beyond play and aims in the long term to offer a real space for healing - physical or psychological - to the children in the program, first those of Ambohidratrimo, and then the street children who will be taken in at the Village of the Sourires, a few kilometers away, with a sports center, which is of paramount importance for the reconstruction of the children. 

Since the beginning of this adventure, we have been fortunate to have the support of one of the country's best athletes, Miangola Razafinimanana, a law student who was recently crowned Madagascar's mixed doubles champion. She supervised the children during the first sessions and will be responsible for the educational and technical content of future sessions, which will be held twice a week for the children.

It will soon be possible for associations and individuals to sponsor one of the street children of the Village des Sourires through Solibad (on a collective basis, not individually). More information will follow, but you can contact us below if you're interested in being part of this wonderful human adventure.

To learn more about 2400Sourires

​

​

​