Rural Madagascar Community Center

The building of a village community center, meeting hall, and tourist hostel aims to address the problem of poor education, specifically health and sexual education, for the youth in the community as well as place for adventure tourism. The young men's organization wishes to establish a youth community center that will serve as a safe space for the village youth to learn about how to live a healthy lifestyle through an education and mentoring program as well as a place for toursists to stay while visiting Ranomafana National Park. The center will also address two major factors in the prevalence of teen pregnancy in the community: lack of sexual health education for young men and lack of hobbies for the village youth. The community center will use technology in order to achieve these goals. The center and educational programs will be run by male community members who originally proposed the idea as a solution to some of the problems facing the community youth. The community will contribute land and a portion of the materials for the project. The community center and program has the potential to change the culture of the village, helping them to understand how to prevent HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, and give them the tools necessary to live a safe and healthy life. As mentioned before, the center will also give the community youth a positive space to spend their time.

The community center will include the following:
-Malagasy, English, French library
-Computer for technology edcuation
-Electricty through solar panels
-Tourist accomodations for adventure travelers
-Meeting place for community groups
-Income generating business for community youth