Henintsoa Daniel, Madagascar
My name is Henintsoa Daniel. I come from Madagascar, and I am a fellow from this year Mandela-Washington fellowship cohort. I am a Child and Youth care specialist by training, but currently I work as an Inclusion Project manager for a USAID-funded project on food security in response to the climate change-induced hunger crisis affecting millions of people in the South of Madagascar. It’s my second job in the emergency response. Prior to this, I led a major inclusive response project for the Covid-19 pandemic in Madagascar in 2020. It’s quite a long walk away from Child and Youth care work but I always feel grateful I am able to help where it is mostly needed.
However, what I am firstly passionate about is Child and youth care (CYC) work. CYC consists on using advanced skills and evidence-based practices such as social pedagogy, sociology, psychology, health, education, social work and social policy in caring for at-risk children and youth. It’s been about 12 years that I have been a CYC worker in destitute communities, schools, and various grassroots non-profits. Although I have had the chance to be involved in a large variety of programs that were life-changing for me and for Madagascar, one of my most valued experiences was my humble beginning as a special education needs teacher at the American School of Antananarivo, Madagascar. This is where I learned to connect with my students and embrace their strength and vulnerability through an authentic heart to heart, mind to mind teacher student relationship. This is also where my life adventure with my non-profit, Hay Kanto, started. Hay Kanto provides street children with free access to community-lead activities such as arts clubs, science clubs, girls wellness clubs and food and clothing drives. Recently, we added to our list of CYC services a new project called “Youth Full of Hope”. It is a post-carceral program for children and youth in conflict with the law to facilitate their return and reintegration to the society through counseling, school re-enrollment or vocational training and other opportunities.
Having had the chance to serve the community and the most destitute ones through a variety of initiatives, I felt the need to improve my leadership skills and develop competences in public management. Therefore, I thought the MWF was the perfect opportunity to learn those skills. Moreover, as I am restless advocate for child protection, youth empowerment and inclusion, I was eager to meet like-minded African and American people with whom I would like to exchange ideas, best practices and experiences. Indeed, the MWF is such a rich program in terms of learning, networking and diversity. It is one big opportunity to showcase Africa as one great continent abounding with talents, ambition, kindness and potential.
My ambition is to formally establish Child and Youth Care profession in Madagascar. I would like Hay Kanto to lead this initiative as a grassroots CYC mandated non-profit. We hope to start sharing our knowledge, experience on CYC through relevant public platforms such as radio, TV, webinars or other events that promote child protection, children’s rights and other related topics. My nearest project for Hay Kanto after this Fellowship is to start podcast series which discuss CYC related topics that are relevant to the context of Madagascar and globally. I also hope these podcast series become an opportunity to facilitate cultural exchanges between other Child care related professionals from around the world too because there is so much that we can learn from each other.
Indeed, as Jon Krakauer said in his novel, Into the Wild: “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”, I look forward to the various ways that this fellowship program will offer us new encounters so that our respective horizons will be ever changing and our days will be greeted by different sun everyday.