2025 Year In Review
We Did Great Work
As we enter a new year, I wanted to reflect on what we accomplished together in 2025. Despite all the challenges, this was without question, our best year. We served 2,077 children nutritious meals at our school lunch program during this year's lean season. Our level of performance was outstanding, leading the Regional Head of the Ministry of Education (DREN) to highlight our program as the best in the region!
Our Regional Manager Finaritra Rabearitina (pictured second from the left) has done an amazing job working with our team -- no challenge is too big for them to solve and her attention to detail is incredible. Her team has just completed the trainings in cooking, nutrition, health, and sanitation with over 1,000 parents to prepare for the upcoming 2026 season in February-April. I'm always impressed with the willingness of the team to always be present for each other, no matter the circumstance or the difficulties with traveling.
Relationships Are Changing
Relationships between organizations and between governments are changing in many unexpected ways this last year and beyond. The reordering of relationships may be unsettling, but the human connections that exist in these organizations will persist through the turmoil.
These changes in relationships seem to have brought NGOs, and the people in them, closer together. I felt a new willingness to reach out to one another this year. During my visit to Antananarivo last July, I toured a fortified porridge manufacturing facility. They were down to half their staff because of cancelled orders, but despite the hardships, they remained cheerful, optimistic, and ready to collaborate in creative ways.
And this summer, so many Peace Corps Madagascar in-country staff members took time out of their busy schedule to share their expertise in leadership, communication, and cooking with our team during our annual leadership training.
Dr. Alain Rambolamanana was integral to ensuring that we maintain the highest possible health standards using the tools that exist in our partner villages. Lova Rakotomalala shared her knowledge in communication and messaging. Chef Roland gave us a cooking course that has been replicated in all 13 schools to rave reviews! Hobiana Rabarivelo got our growers program jump started. Raherinirainy Tojosoa shared his extensive skills in videography and storytelling. Jemima Radasimalala gave us an advanced course on social-emotional learning. Many of these topics were new to our front-line managers and these have made the team even stronger. All this knowledge was shared so generously and received so warmly by all.
Generosity has also played a defining role in 2025. Together we raised over $18,000 in the month of December alone! I was struck by how many people from so many different corners of the world from Germany, the UK, India, and the US found the time to donate their time or money to help us reach our mission of keeping children nourished so that they stay in school and become the best that they can be.
Dexterity Is Required
In 2024, Nourish Madagascar began a focus on leadership development for our front-line managers. The teamwork that we have built gives us the dexterity to navigate this uncertainty and to thrive despite the challenges. Cross-training of skills is essential. There are always challenges that await us with such a large base of parent volunteers, and having 'single points of failure' with our community managers had to be avoided. While each 'hero' on our staff is so appreciated and valuable, it is also a potential failure point. If our hero is suddenly unavailable, the organization could be hobbled. Again, I'd like to credit Finaritra for creating an organizational culture where cooperation and cross-training is the norm.
During a discussion last year with staff members of the Madagascar Office of Nutrition, the topic of independence was brought up. Consistent access to food during a seasonal time of hunger is at the heart of our model. But, in the changing landscape of 2026, our partner villages cannot depend on our presence indefinitely. To avoid disruptions, each of our partners need to be able to handle the scaling up or down of our work as time progresses. This process is still a work in progress, but having the discussions early on with each village has been helpful.
Staying Motivated and Realistic
For 2026, our most precious resource is optimism for the future. I'm excited about what's next and the impact we can make together. There are well over 1,000 of us at Nourish Madagascar each doing their part to improve the prospects for over 3,000 children next year. Parents are waking up early to prepare for the day's cooking, school committees are managing the schedules, our community managers are leading the way, our advisors are sharing their wisdom, and so many of you are getting involved and helping the mission.
However, our high expectations for what's next should be tempered so that they are sustainable. Over-commitment can be disruptive to all those who are sacrificing so much to meet the mission. This tempering of expectations can be in tension with my need for optimism as a leader and has been disorienting at times. I've found creating Excel spreadsheets for program scalability both up and down can be a focused moment where this tempering of expectations can occur and ultimately provide a useful management tool. It's a contained period of practicality that can be bounded by optimistic thought afterwards.
Still, hopefulness will always prevail. I had so many conversations with people who have weathered considerable turmoil last year. And an astonishing number of them were willing to help far beyond expectations. That spirit will drive us forward in 2026!