Sepali team facing the Covid 19: wearing new face-mask every three hours; hand washing with soap and social-distancing; wearing a uniform and minimizing contact with people.

1- SEPALIM program during the crisis:

Six months ago, Madagascar decision makers have decided initiate a lockdown in response to Covid 19.  During the lockdown, it is prohibited to move from one region to another. Despite these difficulties, the SEPALI Madagascar team is struggling to continue working with precaution against the Covid 19. We have been able to ship four packages to the US and Canada, in order to continue the program as well as surviving. The team is continuing to design new products for the CPALI/SEPALIM online market. (www.tananasilk.com)  In addition to that, we are is going to experiment with “ Fruit dryer building” for family food security purposes.  Therefore, we are using the lockdown period as a brainstorming time to explore new alternative help for our farmers.

Mr Fenozara Justin and his wife holding his Suraka cocoons said he did not regret to farm the larvae host plant because this has rescued him during such crisis situation.

2- Sepali program as an alternative revenue for the local villagers:

Covid 19 and the Dengue epidemic have limited the farming activities in Maroantsetra. The fluctuation of the vanilla price (from 500 USD in 2018 to less than 100 USD in 2020) have coincided with this crisis period. Thus have a negative impact on every household income. Therefore, people look for rescuer jobs to earn money. Fortunately, the SEPALIM wild silk and raffia program was designed specifically to be affordable and reachable by the local community in a such difficult situation.

Many farmers have joined the SEPALIM program and harvest both of Raffia and wild silk sustainably and sell to SEPALI Madagascar with fair price. Cocoon deposits are four times greater in the last couple years for Ceranchia species, Bombyx and Deborrhea. We got twice deposit than last year for Borocera species. Many farmers go back to rework on Suraka cocoon production after a few years on stand-by.

Many women artisan got help from their jobless-husband because there is nothing else to earn money.

On behalf of the SEPALI Madagascar team, I address a special thanks to All of you who contribute to make our program survive during this hard time that we are facing.

Sincerely,

Mamy Ratsimbazafy