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Madagascar, Madagascar, Madagascar...
a dream name, a mystery, the unknown, discovery. Towards the end of the eighties, I visited Madagascar for the first time with my parents, I never thought that this welcoming country with smiling faces, peaceful with various plants and animals, red, green and blue dominated colored stuck in my mind would be one day mine. |
Fate will bring me back to Madagascar few years afterwards, in 1992 when I met Ylias Akbaraly, young and dynamic business man originally from India, faithful, with principles and values, he became few months later my husband. The heart and not the mind made me turn a page of my life at the age of 27 to leave behind me a Milanese posh life (I am italian born, from Milan) to jump into the adventure of life in Madagascar, a country then almost unknown to my compatriots.
Since then, the heart gently pushed me to look after Malagasy orphans and poor children through " Fihavanana association " (www.fihavanana-madagascar.org) created in 1995 . In 2008, I co-founded with Ylias the Akbaraly Foundation.
Through this foundation, Ylias and myself hope to be able to contribute in an active way to the development of the country that hosted and sheltered us, a country which we are profoundly attached to and where we live happily and serenely with our children and family.
The goal of the foundation is to improve the quality of life of the Malagasy population, unfortunately very poor in various aspects: health, education, nutrition, agri-business development, youth, sports. The symbol of the foundation is the circle green and blue, life and death, the sun and the unity, the sky, the rice fields of Madagascar. The realized projects are described in this site.
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The fate turned again the page of my life, of our lives, for the second time, in 2009 when cancer occurred in it. Since then, the foundation focused its energies, financial and human resources to the fight against women cancer in Madagascar with the project 4AWOMAN (www.4AWOMAN.org) launched in May 2010 with the support and collaboration of the Government of Madagascar, the World Health Organization and various scientific partners at a world high-level.
Madagascar, thank you for having given a direction to our lives.
May the ABOVE guide and keep us all well!
Cinzia Catalfamo Akbaraly
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