Andrianina
Irina Randrianarivelo

Andrianina Irina is Founder and Editor-in-chief of MadaLiving, a digital publication capturing Malagasy Diaspora and local voices on life, culture, and living in Madagascar and around the world. The publication aims to be an objective, transparent, and socially inclusive modern guide with actionable content, serving as a premiere media source and platform for its active and socially engaged audience.

As a second-generation immigrant to the US, raised in Baltimore, Maryland, she
completed her Bachelor studies in International Business at the ESDES Business School in Lyon, France and has studied and worked in South Korea and Norway.

Andrianina Irina’s background as a Diaspora youth led her to return to Madagascar for the first time in 2019 as one of the young volunteers in IOM’s “Loharano Volunteer Program” in the pilot project. It aimed to mobilize young people from the Malagasy Diaspora to contribute to impactful local development in their home country. During this volunteering period, she worked in the education sector in a small village outside the capital, Antananarivo, where she developed English and French language curriculum for young rural students and helped several local associations with business development and entrepreneurship.

As the leader of a global diaspora organization, she is always looking for ways to find, engage, and support the Malagasy Diaspora. The many different Diaspora faces include: those who are returning to Madagascar or making their first move there, folks migrating within Madagascar, or those finding new hometowns around the world.

Her work aims to encourage and empower social enterprise and business innovation by providing independent consultancy on various projects, foster cultural exchanges in Madagascar with the aim of breaking down barriers between the Malagasy diaspora and local people, and weaving the art of story-telling, disseminating information, and digital communication to tie together her strong and ever-growing community.