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...

/ Jan 25, 2014

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...

/ Jan 9, 2014

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...

/ Dec 20, 2013

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...

/ Nov 28, 2013

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...

/ Nov 8, 2013

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...

/ Sep 23, 2013

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,...

/ Aug 14, 2013

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...

/ May 13, 2013

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...

/ May 9, 2013

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...

/ May 3, 2013

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...

/ Mar 14, 2013

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...

/ Feb 14, 2013

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...

/ Feb 1, 2013

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...

/ Dec 11, 2012

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...

/ Nov 15, 2012