Profile and activities
The project was called “One Family, One Roof”, a community, social and economic development pilot project which, over the years, took the form of an ecovillage.
The village created was named TSARATÀNANA (“Pretty Village”) by the beneficiary families who actively participated in its creation.
Its construction began in August 2007 and was completed in 2009 after 12 months of work.
Today the village is:
– 75 inhabitants (including 32 adults)
– 17 individual houses with vegetable gardens
– 1 micro-economic space where craftsmen work in different trades
– an ecolodge which can accommodate the association's volunteers. It also offers a table d'hôtes to visitors and in the medium term, it could become a place of tourist reception.
– a community house which includes a multi-purpose room, a workshop, a library, a kitchen and outside, a multi-sports ground.
The main goal of this project was to offer a model for the fight against poverty in all its aspects by improving the living conditions of poor families while preserving their dignity by refusing any form of assistance.
Anne and Joaquim Miranda are among the co-founders of the association behind the project.
The Association Loi 1901 “CAP ESPÉRANCE” was indeed created in June 2005, by a group of friends, all involved in their professional activities in the social, education or medical fields. It became “YOCONTIGO ESPÉRANCE Solidarité Internationale” in November 2009.
Today
The eco-village of Tsaratànana, which we discover in the last part of GRAINES D'ESPOIR, is a small place that has symbolic value. No one believed that a tree could one day grow in the infertile soil of this excavation and yet... The dream became reality through the work done together, and the reality exceeded the dream!
The project initiated by Anne and Joaquim works wonderfully the two French initiators have managed to develop autonomy within the village with the help of all the inhabitants. They go to Madagascar one or two months a year and the rest of the year, they set up reception actions for migrants in Soissons.
The revegetation of the site continues and food self-sufficiency is well underway with the installation of water reservoirs that allow watering in all seasons.
The school change is underway in a humanist approach, close to the values of the two creators.
Economic activities increasingly diversified.
The Malagasy Ministry for Ecological Transition has asked the inhabitants of the village of Tsaratànana to provide training sessions throughout the country. In June 2022, a joint broadcast program of the film GRAINES D'ESPOIR in the Alliances Françaises was set up in parallel with these training sessions. This program allows young people from the project SEEDS OF HOPE to travel, with the inhabitants of the village, in contact with their Malagasy fellow citizens.
Tsaratànana could well turn out to be an interesting example also for our Western societies.
In 2020 was created Tsaratanana's first card, with the help of two young French people, Elise Wojnarowski and Lucas Domingues.
Learn more: https://www.behance.net/gallery/144239669/Map-of-Tsaratanana
