Vitrine de Vakinankaratra

From Thursday 13^th to Saturday 15^th of October Vakoka Vakitenty participated on the Vitrine de Vakinankaratra, a fair and exhibition in Antsirabe arranged for the 14^th time. The reason for making this fair is to give industrial, commercial and agricultural manufacturers a chance to show their products in order to “fight regression” (source: FIOVA, the arranger of the fair: http://fiova.over-blog.com/).

Mrs Hanta reports that she had a very nice time these three days, assisted by Kathy, a young lady who has experience in marketing. There were many people visiting the stand and even the Minister of Industry Henri Rasamoela came and took a look at our books. The feedback from the Minister was very positive and he emphasised that Vakoka Vakiteny shows that it is possible to do great things with few resources and a small apparatus. Also the Major of Antsirabe, Mrs Olga Ramalason was impressed and asked for an appointment with Mrs Hanta.

The stand. Second and third from the left are Mrs Hanta and Kathy

Mrs Hanta (on the right) is showing the books to the Minister of Industry (third from the left).

Right behind the Minister is the head of FIOVA.

Mrs Hanta and Mayor of Antsirabe, Mrs Olga Ramalason are enjoying a drink

Children and youth who were passing by got the chance to sit down and read at the stand and totally there were sold 33 books. People were impressed by the quality of the books and they gave much positive feedback. However, Vakoka Vakiteny also received suggestions for improvement and ideas for further production.


The pictures in this post were taken by some journalists covering the fair. However, Mrs Hanta promises to send some more pictures that show the stand, taken by friends. We will post those as soon as we receive them.

Vakoka Vakiteny on RTA radio

Mrs Hanta will be interviewed directly on Radio Télévision Antsirabe (RTA) tomorrow morning. She will tell about the work of Vakoka Vakiteny and the importance of books. Further she will inform about where it is possible to purchase the books and how schools can contact Vakoka Vakiteny if they are interested.

Mrs Hanta will also participate on “Vitrine de Vakinankaratra”, an exhibition where different products from the region of Vakinankaratra are exposed. She will make a stand with the books and products of Vakoka Vakiteny. It will take place October 13 to 15 at the avenue in front of the railway station in Antsirabe.

In addition she will train students and teachers at the Farimbona school in Antsirabe about books and literature on Monday. This is in connection with the distribution of Ampanirio, the environment book.

We will of course cover her activities on the blog and we also hope to be able to share some pictures.

The web page is updated

Mparany has worked hard for several weeks now and taught himself how to update the Vakoka Vakiteny web page, www.vakiteny.org.

We have made modifications in the structure of the page and replaced some information. Now we are more satisfied with it. The association has its own space on the page (http://www.vakiteny.org/Association.htm) where the membership application form can be downloaded, and all our newsletters can be downloaded from http://www.vakiteny.org/Newsletter.htm.

If you should find some problems with the page, please tell us. We are still in the “learning by doing” phase, so we are happy to receive any feedback.

New pictures

Here are two of the ten new pictures we have received from Nassar, our illustrator for the youth novel about Todisoa. They show Antohomadinika, one of the poorest quarters in the capital Antananarivo.

Report from Hanta

Today we had a short meeting on Skype with Hanta, our coworker in Madagascar. She tells that she has worked with the distribution of Ampanirio, the environment book, and Uncle Tefy. Furthermore she has also sold some copies of Uncle Tefy and done publicity for this book in Antsirabe. The feedback from people is very positive, she reports. She has also presented Uncle Tefy to the “Alliance Franco-Malgache” in Antsirabe.

The cover of the geography book has to be strengthened a bit since the back of some of the first books we received from the printing house had a tendency to dissolve. Last week Hanta visited the printing house. Unfortunately she could not collect all the resting copies, but we hope that the last covers soon will be glued.

There have already been finished and delivered 10 new black and white pictures for the book about Todisoa, which will be scanned and sent to us this week.

Hanta has had much work to do during this first month. But it has been interesting and enjoyable, she says.

Vakoka Vakiteny’s webpage

Now the webpage of Vakoka Vakiteny is up and run again with updated contact details and some updates in our book assortment. We will update it further as soon as possible. At least you can now click into our page and get more information about our work and philosophy. We have also updated the page about our sponsors/ partners.

We apologize if there still should be problems with some links, buttons or pictures on the page.

Events in Baden-Baden and Gernsbach

On Friday 15th July Mparany and Sophie had two small gatherings with supporters and sponsors of Vakoka Vakiteny in Baden-Baden and Gernsbach in Germany.

In the morning we visited the Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium in Gernsbach to thank the school for their generous donations during last school year. With help of the Gymnasium we were able to print the geographic picture book in 1000 copies. After a short meeting with the headmaster Mr. Beil and the responsible teacher Mrs. Rauffmann we met the students in the canteen. We were surprised that so many were interested as the meeting was voluntary. We received many questions from the students about the geography book, our work and the general situation in Madagascar. It was especially pleasing to meet many students who had listened to our presentation about Madagascar and Vakoka Vakiteny at the school last year. Afterwards we spoke with two students from the student council who were very eager to continue the support and make publicity for our work in Madagascar.

In the afternoon the association supporting Vakoka Vakiteny, “Förderverein Madagaskar Schul- und Kinderbücher e.V.” had their annual meeting in the home of board member Mrs. Schelshorn (2nd from the right on the picture) in Baden-Baden. Following this assembly the 9 members of the association and 7 other interested people came to listen to our report about the activities during the last school year and look at our new books. It was a very enjoyable evening where we discussed both the work and the general situation in Madagascar. In addition we received inspiration, suggestions and feedback.

A great thank you goes to Mrs. Schelshorn for her hospitality. Furthermore we want to thank the staff and students at the Gymnasium and the association board for arrangements and support.