Caring Response-Madagascar Foundation

Adult literacy program the adult literacy program continues to be at the heart of crmf programming. 1,093 adults enrolled in ong st. Gabriel's free, neighbor- hood-based adult litercy classes in 2024, with an astounding 822 - 75% - successfully completing the program last year. Computer literacy program ong st. Gabriel trained 280 people in basic computer skills last year, exceeding its 2024 goal of enrolling 225. Young people are clamoring for this course, understanding that i.t. Skills are increasingly vital to winning well-paid jobs.

Women's self-help groups the goal of the self-help groups is to provide literacy program graduates with a path to economic self-sufficiency. By working together and pooling their savings, the groups become eligible for loans that can be invested in creating small businesses. Our st. Gabriel partners mentored 32 active women's self-help groups totaling 340 literate women in 2024, connecting many to specialized training. 88% of the members achieved financial independence through their own enterprises, including sewing, raising crops and livestock, food processing, and restaurants. Their success is life- changing, particularly for their children.

The model healthy village initiative as in the previous model healthy villages, the goal of this program is to improve public health by bringing clean water, hygiene education, safe sanitation, and environmentally friendly smokeless ovens to an entire fokontany and its cluster of small villages and hamlets. In 2024, crmf funding equipped skilled health educators - all of them from toamasina - to organize hygiene educations and to provide every household with water filters, latrines, handwash kits, and the knowledge to use and maintain them. Just one year into implementing the project in the remote village of ambodisaina ivondro, the community rate of open defecation dropped from 81.6% to 6.4%. Data collected during our past mhv projects have shown that the introduction of the basic hygiene measures mentioned above has substantially reduced both school absenteeism and the rate of infectious diarrhea among the overall population. In addition, the use of the environmentally friendly smokeless oven has reduced the occurrence of respiratory disease. Medical education through crmf's saving the lives of mothers and babies program at the ankirihiry csb ii, our 2024 obstetric team trained 20 midwives in episiotomy and the repair of 3rd and 4th degree lacerations. As a result, the csb midwives reduced the clinic's episiotomy rate to below 15% as recommended by who guidelines. Also in 2024, seven malagasy medical students participated in the internal medicine mentorship program, a partnership with the association sante pour tous (ast) and the vonjy medical center. As part of their theoretical and clinical intensive, the students, supervised by crmf volunteer doctors, offered free consultations and medications to 135 of toamasina's most needy residents.