Ivory Coast
Since 2009, the MSC Group and UNICEF have partnered in life-changing programmes to fight malaria in Africa, provide an education for children living in the slums of Brazil and combat child malnutrition, saving 100,000 young lives. Our most recent programme together is in the Ivory Coast.
Plastic Waste to Schools
Recycling plastic waste to support children’s education and improve women’s employment, that’s what we’re supporting UNICEF to achieve in Ivory Coast, fostering a women-empowering recycling market that makes plastic waste into innovative low-cost bricks to build much-needed modern classrooms.
At present, only 5% of plastic waste is recycled in Ivory Coast, a country where 46% of households live below the poverty line and 2 million children are out of school because of poverty and lack of classrooms. The MSC Foundation’s new programme with UNICEF addresses all three of these problem areas simultaneously, aiming to lift 60 women waste collectors out of poverty by creating a recycling market to make 880,000 kg of plastic waste into innovative bricks and build 152 modern classrooms for over 8,300 out-of-school children by 2021.
Challenges
2million
children are out of school
288tons
plastic produced every day in Abidjan
Only 5%
of plastic waste is recycled
46%
of households live in poverty
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