Second Progress Report on Gem School Scholarships in Madagascar
By Tom Cushman,
Project Manager and Board of Directors, Artminers
The Artminers Madagascar Scholarship Project, financed by a $100,000 grant from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation, began on October 13, 2008 and continues today, having awarded 159 scholarships to 142 students.
The Artminers scholarships are offered to students studying lapidary (gem cutting), gemology, and fashion jewelry design and creation. Students were enrolled at two schools, the Institut de Gemmologie de Madagascar (IGM) and the Ecole Superior Specialise de Vakanakaratra (ESSVA). The IGM is located in the Malagasy capital Antananarivo, and ESSVA is in Antsirabe, the second largest Malagasy city and center of Madagascar’s traditional gemstone industry for over 100 years.
The IGM is a gem and jewelry specialty school and students at IGM are able to take classes in all three subjects. ESSVA offers gem cutting on a vocational arts campus where students may also take classes in Hotel/Restaurant Management, Eco-Tourism, Electronics Repair, Communications and Journalism, and Business Management.
The Artminers Scholarship Project came about due to a generous grant from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation as Tom was finishing his four year stint as a consultant building and guiding the first few years of the IGM’s existence. IGM was funded by the World Bank as a part of the Projet de Gouvernance des Resources Minerales (PGRM), an effort to develop Madagascar’s mineral resource sector.
Madagascar has much mineral wealth, and a strong artisanal gem mining sector that, while not contributing enormously to the national treasury is very important to rural earnings and is a large, part-time employer.
The IGM was set up to build capacity in the Malagasy people interested in better profiting from the gemstones in their country. Although the sale of rough gem material is a strong income generator, adding value by transforming rough gems to polished jewels or better yet, jewelry would earn even more and generate even more employment. Education and training was seen as the best way to bring more and more highly recompensed Malagasy into the gem and jewelry industry.
It worked. The gem business in Madagascar was forever changed due to IGM and its graduates.
The IGM was financed by the World Bank. The PGRM, World Bank funding was due to expire in 2010 and an alternative method of raising money was needed to secure IGM’s long term prospects. Becoming self-sufficient in terms of revenue seemed a good choice of method and to that end scholarships to pay school fees for an increase in enrollment that would generate the needed income outside of Malagasy government support or World Bank financing seemed a solution.
The Tiffany & Co. Foundation found the scholarship idea worthy and agreed to finance a one year, $100,000 project.
ESSVA is in large part financed by a Catholic Diocese in Switzerland. The former Minister of Mines of Madagascar had been a rector at ESSVA and it was by his urging that the administration of ESSVA and the IGM joined efforts to promote gem education in a region with a long history of gemstone activity.
ESSVA agreed to construct a building for gem cutting education and to employ the instructors if the PGRM/IGM would donate the instructor training and cutting equipment. The gem cutting school at ESSVA was inaugurated in 2006. Initial acceptance of the gem cutting school was much less than hoped for. Antsirabe is much less wealthy than the capital and the cost of gem cutting instruction was thought to be excessive especially as gem cutters had been trained informally and inexpensively by apprenticeship for generations.
Sadly, the apprentice training only served to reinforce old fashioned, native cutting techniques that are not acceptable in either quality or design to modern gem buyers. Gem cutting was not thought to be a forward looking, high earning career. The career outlook changed dramatically after cutters trained at IGM began to show and sell their stones in the local gem market. These newly trained cutters sold their product much more quickly and at higher prices than the traditional cutters.
In addition, a Canadian entrepreneur opened a small, twelve-person gem cutting workshop and paid what was thought locally to be a very high wage to his cutters. The Mada-Cana factory had a very high skill threshold for their entry employees and would not accept any traditionally instructed cutters. Enrollments at ESSVA increased but not to capacity and the problem of the price of instruction persisted.
Artminers scholarships have helped to bridge the gap between tuition costs and ability to pay for rural Malagasy. Many students from Southern and Central Madagascar have been enrolled at ESSVA as the Antsirabe school was thought to be a good alternative to the IGM in the capital city for those students coming from rural backgrounds. The culture shock of the big city life of Antananarivo is off-putting to country residents and some potential students would not accept a scholarship if it required studying in Antananarivo.
The Tiffany & Co. Foundation/Artminers project came at a very crucial time for the gem industry of Madagascar. The former President, Marc Ravalomanana, had closed all rough gem exports in February 2008. An ex post facto explanation was that the export ban was to encourage foreign gem buyers to establish their transformational industry in Madagascar. By coincidence, the decree stopping all gem exports came the same day a search of a cargo jet failed to seize a large emerald specimen supposedly in transit to China from Reunion Island that had been the object of controversy and desire on the part of the President.
The effect of the export ban was that declared gem exports were reduced from $30,000,000 in 2007 to less than $300,000 in 2008. Foreign buyers left the country en masse. Many relocated to Tanzania where new finds of sapphire and ruby were made in 2008 and 2009. Malagasy interest in the gem sector as a career was markedly reduced and enrollments at IGM and ESSVA plummeted.
Mining, especially artisanal mining, came to a halt as buyers were not available to purchase mining production. The middleman and support sectors were decimated. With no production came no need for transformation; ergo, no jobs for cutters. No foreign company established a new workshop in Madagascar and the few previously established cutting operations scaled back. Rural insecurity worsened dramatically as previously occupied miners and middlemen turned to crime for income. The thriving rush towns of Ilakaka and Sakaraha became nearly deserted. The impact was felt not merely in the mining centers but any and everywhere gems had been produced or marketed.
Madagascar’s problems were compounded when in December 2008, the 34 year old mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, began to lead street protests against President Ravalomanana. The protests led to riots in January and February and eventually an army backed coup in March 2009 which brought Mr. Rajoelina to the Presidency of the High Transitional Authority and leadership of the coup government. Businesses closed and international investors left the country. Foreign donors, notably the USA, EU, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suspended all aid. Order and rule of law disappeared. Rampant theft of assets of the previous regime’s businesses and stocks of imported foods led to a breakdown of the economy and a currency devaluation that has seen the dollar appreciate by 25% since the beginning of 2009. The already stressed gem sector took another blow.
Throughout these crises the IGM and ESSVA maintained their schedules and Artminers continued to finance students. A majority if not most of the students from December to July in both institutions were Artminers scholarship students. The scholarships provided a very large part of the income for the IGM as the World Bank funding was cut off in March.
One positive development of the restructuring of the coup government was that Mme. Nadine Ranorosoa, the Director of the IGM, was named as Secretary General of the Energy Ministry. The Energy Ministry took over management of the Mines Ministry par interim and as SG of the Ministry Mme. Nadine was able to convince the Minister of Energy to reopen gem rough exports in July. There was an almost immediate response by the Malagasy as miners started mining and dealers started dealing and cutters started cutting. Enrollment shot up instantly at IGM and ESSVA.
Since 2008, a public workshop has been open at both ESSVA and IGM where graduates without personal cutting machines may work on a day rate basis. The public workshop was underutilized until the export ban was lifted. There is now a waiting list of IGM graduates seeking to cut on their own rough on IGM machines. A group of seven lapidary students, all of whom received the advanced course scholarship, formed a cooperative and have begun to cut gems on contract for local dealers. Two of the Artminers students have been taken on board of IGM as staff, one in gemology and another in lapidary. The IGM has opened a monthly gemstone market to create an outlet for local dealers and graduates.
The gem industry in Madagascar has had its ups and downs. We are starting to see an up and it is in no small part due to the role played by Artminers and the Tiffany & Co. Foundation in helping to build the capacity of the Malagasy to manage their own business and for the support given to the IGM and ESSVA during a very difficult period that is not over yet.
More scholarships will be awarded in 2010 until the funds are exhausted.
About The Tiffany & Co. Foundation:The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, which awarded its first set of grants in 2000, provides support to non-profit organizations dedicated to the education and preservation of the decorative arts and environmental conservation. For more information on The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, please visit www.tiffanyandcofoundation.org Contact: Carson Glover, tel: 212 277-5917, carson.glover@tiffany.com
