With 54% of the population under the age of 20 and population growth of 18% in just the past six years, the youth of Madagascar are arguably the most important and influential cohort of the population that should be engaged now in terms of achieving sustainable development and biodiversity protection. C3 engages the youth and develops youth leaders in Madagascar through its immensely successful programme, the Junior Ecoguards, and its youth network, TANOMAFI.

C3’s Junior Ecoguards programme was born in 2009 from a collaboration with the Scout group of Antsiranana. The idea was to engage youth in outreach about environmental threats, challenges and solutions in remote communities of the north. This programme has now gone viral with the financial support of Tusk Trust and has grown into a formalised programme with the Ministry of Education. It has impacted over 120 schools, 35,000 students, over 200 school teachers, 100 government agencies, and 100 NGO staff, across 4 provinces. More than 2,000 youth are active members of the Junior Ecoguards.

We’re rolling out the programme across the entire coastal region of Madagascar over the coming years. Schools are provided with training and resource toolkits with IEC materials including films, storybooks, art materials, posters, ID guides, and a range of practical outdoor activities that teachers can engage their students in to aspire them in environmental leadership. We have created and distributed more than 100 Teacher Toolkits and have held annual Teacher Training fora to four regions: Diana, Sofia, Boeny, and Sava. Topics include biodiversity and sustainable development, climate change, leadership and entrepreneurship, and gender empowerment.

Their potential is limitless and we’re looking for new partners to help accelerate our scaling up of this programme from 2019-2022. Our Junior Ecoguard programme has actually increased the retention of secondary school students through to their final years and enabled students to go on to university study, with at least 50% girls benefitting from the transferable communication, leadership and organisational skills that the training imparts.

Schools are severely under-resourced, often with no toilet facilities, leaking roofs, one classroom for all school years, no furniture and schoolteachers going unpaid for up to six months. The school term was suspended due to political protests for almost half a year in 2018. C3’s programme therefore provides much appreciated continual support to students and teachers and keeps them motivated to keep studying and aspire to go on to further studies and careers.