Breaking Ground: A New School for Amponaomby

On September 15, Wildlife Madagascar officially broke ground on a new permanent school building in the village of Amponaomby, which borders Anjanaharibe-Sud Special Reserve (ASSR). Funded through the IUCN SOS Lemurs Fund, the two-classroom school will provide local children with a safer, more suitable place to learn, including a library and essential classroom facilities. This is especially meaningful because it will be the first school building constructed by Wildlife Madagascar and the first permanent school structure in Amponaomby!

The school is part of our broader IUCN SOS Lemurs project, Investing in Education and Food Security to Protect Lemur Diversity in Anjanaharibe-Sud Special Reserve. ASSR is home to at least 13 lemur species, including a rare, nearly all-black population of indri and the Critically Endangered silky sifaka, and it’s also one of the areas where Wildlife Madagascar’s Education Strategy identifies the greatest need: fewer than half of children in the surrounding communities have access to a school at all, and the local illiteracy rate stands at 88 percent. Amponaomby’s new school is the first to break ground under our commitment to build or rehabilitate 10 schools across our field sites by the end of 2030.

The groundbreaking ceremony brought together representatives from the District of Andapa, CISCO Andapa, the Member of Parliament for Andapa, DREDD SAVA, Madagascar National Parks, the Mayor of Ambodimanga I, the Amponaomby community, and SOATSARA Production, the company constructing the school. Their presence reflects just how much collaboration, across national, regional, and local levels, it takes to bring a project like this to life.

We are grateful to all of our partners and to the people of Amponaomby for helping make this important investment possible.

For Wildlife Madagascar, conservation means supporting both biodiversity and the communities who live alongside it. This school is an important step toward building that future together, giving the children of Amponaomby a stronger foundation and giving Madagascar’s lemurs a community of future stewards.

You can help us continue this work. Donate to Wildlife Madagascar to support education and conservation projects like this one at Anjanaharibe-Sud Special Reserve.