Franciscan Aid received the following report:

‘The Anglican Church in Toliara, is in the south west of the beautiful country of Madagascar. It is a region with a high level of poverty, and has large areas of inaccessible semi-arid forest and coast land. The Diocese is based in the town of Toliara where St Patrick’s Cathedral and the Bible College are located. It is a relatively new diocese, and the church communities are amongst the most deprived in the world and are often new to Christianity. They are a joyful mixture of Anglican traditions.

St Patrick’s Bible College is a small residential college of 9-15 students per year, most are in their 20’s and they train either to become lay evangelists who will go out and lead new church communities or to go on after two years to study theology at university for an additional three years and then be ordained as priests. They are the brightest young people from their communities who are mainly subsistence farmers, or fishermen with little if any educational background, and usually return to those communities as future leaders.

The longer term beneficiaries will be the communities in the remote areas of south western Madagascar who are in urgent need of well-educated local community leaders, as well as the new Anglican churches there who are in need of good priests and evangelists. Currently the Diocese has over 900 churches and, excluding the 5 overseas missionaries, only 9 clergy.

In July 2020 Franciscan Aid were able to support the College by funds for Chairs and bookcases.

In October 2023 following the devastating Cyclone Freddy:

The area of Toliara was badly hit by Cyclone Freddy in March 2023. Homes, church buildings and crops were all badly hit. The worst affected parish is Fenoarivo, located to the south east of Toliara town. Funding is sought to help provision of food, rebuilding of homes/churches and replanting of crops primarily in the parish of Fenoarivo. was worst affected. Over 350 houses were badly damaged or destroyed leaving around 1,250 people homeless, along with damage with crops, farmland and church buildings.

Franciscan Aid were able to send funds for seeds, the repairs for the homes damaged and for transportation of the roof sheets needed.