Visualize Madagascar Baseline Survey Data

Background and Motivation

Health In Harmony is an international NGO which works at the intersection of human and environmental health. We recognize that rainforest communities are the experts who know what is needed for them to be able to protect precious rainforest that is valuable to the whole world both in terms of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Through our process of radical listening we ask rainforest communities what they would need as a thank you from the world community to protect rainforest and then we meet those needs. In every site we have worked, health care is a key need as the lack of it drives communities to log or overexploit the natural resources upon which their future depends. Our first site in West Kalimantan saw a 90% drop in logging households over 10 years and a 67% drop in infant mortality. We have now expanded to Madagascar and this project is to help visualize the baseline survey data. Nice visualizations will help us gather the global thank yous for these communities and will help us best tailor the interventions they have asked for.

Project Description

We can provide both the raw data and the analyses already conducted. In most cases all that is needed is the creation of pretty graphs so that one can understand the data quickly. However, in some cases some additional analyses would also be fabulous (for example for certain key questions it would be good to have the results broken down by village and visualized on a map). The survey is a census of 1321 households in about 30 villages surrounding Manombo protected area along the South East Coast of Madagascar and comprised 65 questions. Many of the questions are identical to national survey questions done by the government (and the agency we hired conducts the government surveys as well) so in some cases, such as infant mortality, it will be good to compare to national data which is freely available on-line.

Intended Impact

Not being able to clearly visualize this data has hampered our fundraising efforts for Madagascar and made it more difficult to plan the interventions. Normally, we would have prioritized this more but the attention of our team has been taken up by dealing with the COVID pandemic (we are healthcare providers in two sites in Indonesia, Madagascar and Brazil). We would be so incredibly grateful for help with this and it will galvanize our ability to provide care, save rainforest, and improve livelihoods around rainforest that is severely threatened. This forest contains 9 species of lemurs, 3 of which are critically endangered, and one of which lives only in this forest. The people surrounding the park are extremely poor, even often without enough food to eat, and they currently have zero access to health care. Visualizing this data will help us meet all those needs.

Internal Stakeholders

Our programs team and communications team.

Internal People Available During the Project

Ashley Emerson and Kinari Webb will be your point people.

Project tasks