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Two girls drinking water from a tap which is connected to Andoharano's water source (picture by my grandparents).
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Andoharano: Fara Razafimandranto's Story
Water, climate change and gender in the context of Madagascar
I was left inspired and curious by the stories my grandparents told me about Madagascar's matriarchal society, as discussed in blogpost five. Therefore, I asked my grandparents if it would be possible to get in contact with a female citizen of Andoharano, to learn more about this topic. They gave me the contact details of Fara Razafimandranto, who is 22 years old. Her dad is the initiator of the EZAKA project and she lives on EZAKA's project site in Andoharano. The project site is about 30 kilometers south from Madagascar's capital city Antananarivo where Fara went to university. Below, the email correspondence with Fara can be found. I initially emailed her in English, and continued the correspondence in French.
On 26/10/11:21, Helen wrote:
Dear Fara Razafimandranto,
I hope you are doing fine :). I am Helen de Graaff, 20 years old granddaughter of Riet & Jos de Graaff. I got the email address of your father Toto from my grandparents.
I am currently a third year Global Sustainability Science student and I am studying in London now for half a year for an exchange. For one course 'Water and Development in Africa' I am writing a blog about Water and Gender in Africa. For this topic, I am mostly interested in which ways water accessibility and water provision in Africa is related to gender roles and gender inequality. I am also curious in what ways climate change has an influence on this relationship. While I was doing research on this topic, I found several striking findings for example:
• In Africa, women and girls are often responsible for a household's water (UNESCO, 2016) for drinking, cooking, washing, and sanitation needs.
• In certain areas it takes hours to collect water, and during the dry season households may be forced to withdraw their children, mostly girls, from school to help collecting water.
So a lot of scientific research suggests that women are mostly responsible for water provision in Africa, which results in power relations between man (who generate the income for the household) and women. I was wondering If you could write me about the situation in Madagascar and in Andoharano, since I am really curious if what science articles write is actually true in for example your village. And, do you also experience consequences from climate change when it comes to water accessibility? Also, I love the meaning of Andoharano, my grandparents told me it means 'Source of living water'.
Let me know what you think. And feel free to write in French if you prefer :))) I will put the link of the blog below, so you can check it out if you like:
https://africaswaterwomen.blogspot.com/
Many greets from me in London and from Riet and Jos
Kind regards,
Helen de Graaff
On 19/11/07:14, Fara wrote:
Dear Helene! Hello !
I greet you dear friend. I received your letter and thank you for contacting me for the situation in our country regarding the impact of climate change. Madagascar is a big island, it is constituted by six Provinces. Each province has its own particularity. We are in the highlands, that is in the center of the country. In our region there are mountains and the problem of water does not feel too hard that during the dry season
especially during the month of September until the end of November or later in early December. On the other hand in the southern part of our island, the drought is very hard, and it is in this part of Madagascar that the population lives very hard almost all the year. It is also in this part that my father had worked hard for several years to search for water. In terms of climate change, our country is also affected by this phenomenon. In Madagascar, what destroys our environment is mainly deforestation, a deforestation that is mainly linked to the poverty of the population. In our village, where we live, as we are in the highlands, the problem of water does not arise from the water sources, this is the reason for the name of our village ANDOHARANO, which means SOURCE . Thanks to our father who studied geophysics and geology, it allowed him to exploit the different sources of water in our village. That's what I can answer regarding your request, dear Helene, but if you want more information, I prefer that you communicate in French.
A thousand friends, the good morning of my parents.
I hope you are doing fine :). I am Helen de Graaff, 20 years old granddaughter of Riet & Jos de Graaff. I got the email address of your father Toto from my grandparents.
I am currently a third year Global Sustainability Science student and I am studying in London now for half a year for an exchange. For one course 'Water and Development in Africa' I am writing a blog about Water and Gender in Africa. For this topic, I am mostly interested in which ways water accessibility and water provision in Africa is related to gender roles and gender inequality. I am also curious in what ways climate change has an influence on this relationship. While I was doing research on this topic, I found several striking findings for example:
• In Africa, women and girls are often responsible for a household's water (UNESCO, 2016) for drinking, cooking, washing, and sanitation needs.
• In certain areas it takes hours to collect water, and during the dry season households may be forced to withdraw their children, mostly girls, from school to help collecting water.
So a lot of scientific research suggests that women are mostly responsible for water provision in Africa, which results in power relations between man (who generate the income for the household) and women. I was wondering If you could write me about the situation in Madagascar and in Andoharano, since I am really curious if what science articles write is actually true in for example your village. And, do you also experience consequences from climate change when it comes to water accessibility? Also, I love the meaning of Andoharano, my grandparents told me it means 'Source of living water'.
Let me know what you think. And feel free to write in French if you prefer :))) I will put the link of the blog below, so you can check it out if you like:
https://africaswaterwomen.blogspot.com/
Many greets from me in London and from Riet and Jos
Kind regards,
Helen de Graaff
On 19/11/07:14, Fara wrote:
Dear Helene! Hello !
I greet you dear friend. I received your letter and thank you for contacting me for the situation in our country regarding the impact of climate change. Madagascar is a big island, it is constituted by six Provinces. Each province has its own particularity. We are in the highlands, that is in the center of the country. In our region there are mountains and the problem of water does not feel too hard that during the dry season
especially during the month of September until the end of November or later in early December. On the other hand in the southern part of our island, the drought is very hard, and it is in this part of Madagascar that the population lives very hard almost all the year. It is also in this part that my father had worked hard for several years to search for water. In terms of climate change, our country is also affected by this phenomenon. In Madagascar, what destroys our environment is mainly deforestation, a deforestation that is mainly linked to the poverty of the population. In our village, where we live, as we are in the highlands, the problem of water does not arise from the water sources, this is the reason for the name of our village ANDOHARANO, which means SOURCE . Thanks to our father who studied geophysics and geology, it allowed him to exploit the different sources of water in our village. That's what I can answer regarding your request, dear Helene, but if you want more information, I prefer that you communicate in French.
A thousand friends, the good morning of my parents.
I was very pleased to receive Fara's extensive email, mostly about climate change in Madagascar and Andoharano. What I found striking, are the significant differences in water related climate impacts in different regions in Madagascar. Due to its location in the highlands, Andoharano does not experience severe climate change impacts. On the other hand, regions in the south of Madagascar face more serious issues. When these differences are related to the topic of Participatory Action Research (PAR) which was discussed in detail in blogpost seven, it shows that global issues have very particular local context. So, even on national level the differences can be significant, which requires attention for the approaches used during PAR processes, since women and men might be affected differently in different regions of a country.
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| Women and men gather for an important meeting. Also women carry responsibilities during discussions about the EZAKA project and the village of Andoharano (picture by my grandparents). |
Fara also points to the problem of deforestation related to poverty, which negatively impacts Madagascar's environment. The causes of deforestation are for example related to agricultural and cattle grazing practices, and the use of wood for building materials and fuels. However, deforestation also has devastating consequences on water availability since it causes an increase risk in flooding and water scarcity since the vegetation and trees do no longer capture water from rainfall. Vegetation also helps protecting the soil from drying out, so deforestation also impacts the quality of the soil in general (Gade, 1996). Besides, deforestation contributes to climate change globally and locally, because less trees and vegetation equals less carbon-storage and local changes in the water cycle has consequences for the local climate (Harper et al., 2007). These consequences of deforestation also have various impact on water collection; an increased water scarcity in a region is likely related to increased water collection times. Deforestation does not solely occur in Madagascar, but is a problem occurring over the whole African continent. It is therefore important to also link research on water and gender in Africa to other socio-economic and environmental problems like deforestation, since the consequences might affect women and men in different ways.
I sent Fara a follow-up email in French, which was more focused on the matriarchal society in Madagascar which my grandparents told me about. Hopefully I will receive response from Fara, and I am glad I could get in touch with a local African woman. Since eventually, I believe that stories told from a local narrative are important in understanding the language of problems as an outsider.
On 27/11/12:36, Helen wrote:
Helen de Graaff
Chère Fara,
Merci beaucoup
pour votre email. J'ai
beaucoup aimé le lire. Il est très
intéressant de voir comment le changement climatique est
vécu à Madagascar et à
Andoharano 😊. Mes
grands-parents m'ont dit qu'à Madagascar, les femmes sont
très appréciées et
qu'on pourrait dire qu’il s’agit d’une société matriarcale,
et que souvent les
hommes vont chercher l'eau pour leurs familles. Dans de
nombreux ouvrages sur
l'eau et le genre en Afrique, cependant, il est indiqué que
ce sont surtout les
femmes et les filles qui sont chargées de la collecte de
l'eau pour leurs
ménages. Pourriez-vous
me parler des
rôles en fonction du genre à Madagascar ou à Andoharano en
ce qui concerne la
collecte de l'eau ou les rôles de genre en général?
Un millier
d'amis, et de nombreuses salutations à tes parents!
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| My grandma and woman from Andoharano doing the laundry at a stream, further down stream is a small waterfall (picture by my grandparents). |
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