© Sarah Tétaud/RFI
Justin Manambelo Technical High School in the center of Mananjary, seen from the sky, totally devastated following the passage of Batsirai.
Covid-19, storm Ana and its deadly floods, cyclone Batsirai, storm Dumako… On the Big Island, schools have paid a heavy price for successive calamities. 134,000 students have still not been able to return to school because of damage to school infrastructure, but also because the rooms are used as accommodation. These include students living in areas hardest hit by the cyclone, such as Mananjary.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tetaud
The Public Primary School (EPP) Manara-penitra (“up to standards” in Malagasy, editor’s note) in the devastated district of Fangato, was inaugurated last October by the President of the Republic. Part of its roof was swept away by the cyclone, even before students might come to learn on its benches. The rooms that have not suffered too much damage are now home to affected families.
Bresesca is 10 years old. With her brothers and her mother, she is one of the fifty people welcomed in this room for ten days to sleep under a roof. “ During the cyclone, I was scared, but I didn’t cry, she confides. I took care of comforting my little brother who was even more afraid than me. In the middle of the night, we had to leave because our house was blown away. What makes me sad today is sleeping here on the cement. »
Promiscuity heats the spirits. During the interview, an argument breaks out between children; their mothers come to blows. For Elita, 14, this situation “ is too difficult to live “, she says. “ I would like to go back to school, not to sleep, but to learn. But my school was destroyed. My house was also destroyed. Please help me. All my school supplies are gone. My notebooks were soaked, the pages stuck together and tore. My dad and my mom, they don’t have the money to buy back my notebooks. Help me, I beg you. »
On the island, 2600 classrooms were totally destroyed and 2000 were damaged. Unicef plans to equip 500 schools with school supplies and to support some of the disheveled schools in the purchase of sheet metal. AT Mananjarywhere 90% of the buildings were damaged, soldiers, residents and around thirty French rescuers began yesterday to clear three of the city’s school buildings with a view to rehabilitating them.
Since the return to school in January in Madagascar, as a precautionary measure, classes have been suspended for a total of more than three weeks. The Ministry of National Education has just authorized schools to make up for lost class hours during the next two holiday periods.