ACCESMAD

ACCESMAD is an NGO created in 2003 whose objective is to promote and develop the means for scientific and technical education of young high school students in Madagascar. The association acts mainly with 4 levers:

• A media library that includes educational materials for scientific and technical subjects, updated every year.
• The creation of means of access to this media library in high schools and third places. The wiring of a room allowing to manage a park of computers, put at the disposal of high schools.
• The accompaniment of high school students and teachers by training them and by following the high school students every year.
• The organization of events to promote science and technology.

ACCESMAD has been a partner of the Nexans Foundation since 2016

As one of their actions is to equip high schools with computer rooms, the first projects mainly concerned the electrical and network upgrades of these rooms. The association quickly proposed to set up projects allowing high schools that are not or poorly connected to the electrical network to benefit from equipment powered by photovoltaic panels and thus to have access to the educational support that they develop.

A first high school was equipped thanks to the project submitted in 2017. Since then, 12 additional landlocked high schools have benefited from it. The type of equipment used has also evolved. From equipment only intended for teachers in the first solar installations, ACCESMAD has gradually adapted them to a more direct use by students with solar computers, and the experimentation of this year of solar suitcases. This is a system of tablets recharged by a photovoltaic installation and which can be used from class to class.

The partnership between ACCESMAD and the Nexans Foundation is mainly involved in the means of access to cabling, equipment and electrical power. But the training part has taken an interesting place on 2 important points for the association: 

• Sustainability of the actions with the training in the maintenance of the equipment made available.
• The creation of a module on renewable energy, a subject which is now officially on the curriculum of high school students. This module is accessible in all the high schools where we intervene, that is to say more than 100 high schools and touches nearly 60 000 students.