Tag: women’s empowerment
Development of a community aquaculture project: going beyond for real sustainability
by Minnie Lanting, ex-Velondriake Programme Coordinator, and Antoine Rougier, Aquaculture Consultant, Madagascar This is Blue Ventures’ approach to promoting sustainable alternative livelihoods through our community-based aquaculture programme. Instead of giving one-off donations or handing out money to local fishers, the...
Safidy at the start of 2014: behaviour change in a time of new year’s resolutions
By Caroline Savitzky, Safidy (Community Health) Programme Coordinator, Velondriake, Madagascar Behaviour change is hard. Anyone who has tried to stick to a new year’s resolution, whether it’s quitting smoking, eating well or being more patient, knows this to be true; especially...
Staff Q&A with Fanjavola Rakotozafy, Community Liaison Officer
In the seventeenth instalment in our series of Q&As with Blue Ventures staff, we ask Fanjavola Rakotozafy, community liaison officer for our sustainable fisheries programme, some searching questions about science, conservation and superpowers… What is your professional background? I studied Geography at the University of...
PHE is alive and kicking: inspiration and endorsement from Addis Ababa
By Laura Robson and Caroline Savitzky The excitement was palpable as we gathered with almost 200 of the world’s finest Population-Health-Environment (PHE) practitioners, researchers and advocates in Addis Ababa for the International PHE Conference earlier this month! With all of...
Reaching the hardest to reach with reproductive health choices
Two boys splash across the shallows as the tide goes out in the channel by Begamela, a small fishing community on Madagascar’s southwest coast, chasing after their model pirogues, adjusting the sails and setting them off in a race towards...
Happy Birthday Blue Ventures and Happy Birthday Safidy!
By Vik Mohan, Medical Director This year, my annual trip to Madagascar coincided with two important anniversaries. Not only is Safidy, our community health programme, six years old, but we are also celebrating ten years of Blue Ventures’ work in...
Three cities, five days, six presentations: lighting fires in the US
By Vik Mohan, Blue Ventures’ Medical Director I recently returned from a whistle-stop one-week tour of three US cities, where I was working to raise the profile of Blue Ventures’ integrated Population-Health-Environment (PHE) approach, sharing the results of our work,...
Symposium on ecological and social resilience in New York
By Kame Westerman, Blue Ventures Velondriake LMMA Coordinator from 2010 – 2102, Madagascar A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the American Museum of Natural History’s symposium on ecological and social resilience in island systems, which brought...
The choice is yours: Safidy reproductive rights training
By Brian Jones, Conservation Coordinator, Toliara, Madagascar While in Andavadoaka a few months ago for the Velondriake Association’s election and first general assembly of 2013, I was lucky enough to catch the Safidy programme’s quarterly review and reproductive rights training...
When there are no more fish in the sea
Cuaming Island, Philippines Rogelio Angco traces the neat rows of numbers with his finger as he recounts the details of the ‘Barangay Profile’; the chart framed above his desk. This table keeps a meticulous record of the makeup of the...
Antanandahy: where the women rule the mangroves
by Sylvia Paulot and Kate England, Blue Forests team, Madagascar After winding its way west, Madagascar’s Tsiribihina River empties into the Mozambique Channel in a maze of tributaries entwined with mangroves. At the end of last year, Sylvia and Kate...
Addressing population dynamics in the global context
by Dr Vik Mohan, Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme, UK Late last year, I flew out to a cold and snowy Copenhagen to attend a meeting of the Population and Sustainable Development Alliance (PSDA). The PSDA (formerly the...
Have you ever encountered a live sea cucumber?
by Taylor Mayol, Communications and Programme Development Officer, Madagascar I hadn’t either until just a few months ago. I knew I was in for a wild ride during my fellowship after I dove into a crystal clear turquoise bay in...
The highs and lows of the octopus project
by Sophie Andriamalala, Southwest Regional Coordinator, Madagascar For the last two weeks the octopus team in Toliara have spent 10 hours a day staring at our computer screens and cleaning, checking and organising over 900 notebooks filled to the brim with...
Ravao’s story: from 12 children to community health worker
By Dr Vik Mohan, Medical Director, UK I recently spent a hectic and intense couple of weeks in the village of Andavadoaka, the village where our community health programme is based, during my annual visit to Madagascar. Although I founded this initiative...