What the Trust does

Flying above the hospital, on the outskirts of Mandritsara town

The Friends of Madagascar Trust (New Zealand) has been formed to raise support for educational and medical projects in Madagascar. New Zealand Societies and Trusts website (http://www.societies.govt.nz/cms)

Currently we have been working in Mandritsara with the Good News Hospital. Mandritsara, Madagascar, is the site of the Good News Hospital (Hopitaly Vaovao Mahafaly, or HVM).

This hopsital was started in the early 1990s and officially opened in May 1996 – by a British doctor, Dr David Mann and Malagasy doctor, Dr Adrien Ralaimiarison, at the request of the African Evangelical Fellowship, in conjuntion with the Bible Baptist Churches of Madagascar. Mandritsara was determined as being central to the most medically needy areas in the country at the time. While there is a government hospital in Mandritsara, the HVM provides the only surgical medical facility for an area of 10,000 square kilometres, embracing a population of over 170,000 people.

The hospital employs both expatriate and local medical staff, while local people comprise the bulk of those involved in the hospital’s administration and maintenance functions. The hospital also runs a school called the Good News School (Ecole Bonne Nouvelle, or EBN) in Mandritsara.

Members or people associated with the Trust have been involved over the last 13 years in the following short term missions where we provided the following:

• 1997
  
  assistance with construction of first ward
• 2003
  
  assistance with construction of sterilisation / office building
  
  a doctor
  
  communications engineer
• 2005
  
  medical student
• 2006
  
  designed and built trusses for the hospital guest house
  
  a laboratory technician
  
  a communications engineer
• 2007
  
  trained local carpenters
  
  IT technician
• 2007/2009
  
  supported engineer undertaking runway construction with Mission Aviation Fellowship
• 2008/2009
  
  engineering student
• 2009
  
  designed and built trusses for temporary classrooms
  
  designed and built radio mast
  
  communications engineer

Our current project is to fund and build a purpose built facility for EBN. (http://madagascar.org.nz/index1.html)