GlobalGiving.org: Library for 10,000 Moroccan Berbers

Girls' Scholarship and Tutoring Program

Cloe Medina Erickson — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:53:24 GMT

We are very excited to announce the foundation of a girls' scholarship and community tutoring program that will compliment the community library. In parnership with the Iqra Fund and the local Association Amezray SMNID we will be launching the program in 2012. The first group of scholarship girls will begin attending middle school in September of 2012.

Currently, the region only offers education up to the sixth grade. And many families cannot afford to send their kids on to junior high school and high school at the nearest available schools; 80 kilometers away. Additionally, girls' families are hesitant to have their daughters stay in the government dormitories, where there is risk of drinking, smoking, and hanging out with boys.

The scholarship program will provide private housing for all of the girls, including a live-in chaperone, cook, and a strict set of rules that will help ease parents' concerns.

Additionally, the tutoring program will help prepare primary school students for continuing their education and ensuring that they will receive the marks necessary to succeed in secondary and high school.

"The future of the region is in the youth," said SMNID president Youssef Oulcadi, "we must invest in them to change our future and improve the well-being of all of the people in the region."

Zawiya Ahansal is considered the second poorest region of Morocco with extremely high illiteracy rates; over 90% of women and 70% of men cannot read or write.

Links:

Community Finalizes Library Management Plan

Cloe Medina Erickson — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:21:30 GMT

Oulcadi meets with project responsibles.

The local association, Amezray SMNID and the owners of the igherm have reached the final stage of drafting the library's management plan. Once this management plan is signed by both the association, the igherm owners, and project manager, Cloe Medina Erickson, the final stage of construction can begin. This spring the drafting of the management plan for the library was given to Amezray SMNID, which is a local and legally registered Moroccan community association. Throughout the spring and summer, Youssef Oulcadi, the association president has been working with the community to draft a community-wide plan that will discuss all details of the library management including income, financial reporting, librarian job description, operating hours, and more.

"The process of creating a community-wide agreeable plan is very important for the sustainability of the project,' stated Oulcadi. "Without taking the appropriate amount of time to draft this plan we would risk the outcome of the entire project."

Oulcadi anticipates that the plan will be finished by September 2011 and signed by all responsible parties in October.

Additionally, in July the Moroccan American Commission for Cultural Exchange (MACECE) visited the project with their Fulbright-Hayes Summer Seminar group, which included 15 American academics and scholars representing their affiliated universities. The MACECE group visited the igherm and learned about all of the Atlas Cultural Foundation's work in the region.

Links:

Atlas Cultural Foundation

2011 Field Work begins

Cloe Medina Erickson — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:19:56 GMT

I arrived in Zawiya Ahansal, Morocco a few days ago to oversee the field work for the next three months. The first week or two in country is always busy with administration and paperwork. Yesterday we solidified an official partnership agreement between Atlas Cultural Foundation and the local association Amezray SMNID. Atlas Cultural Foundation is an American NGO that was formed last winter to manage and house the philanthropic work of Erickson Creative Group in Morocco. ACF is a registered 501c(3) non-profit project under the umbrella of Adirondack Sustainable Communities, Inc. Amezray SMNID will act as the local representative of the people and will also be able to collaborate and communicate with our Moroccan Ministry partnerships in the absence of ACF staff.

Today we signed an agreement with the owners of the Amezray Igherm to begin construction of the library and community room portion of the project. We also began discussion about the initial management of the library and training of young men and women to become the eventual librarians. We finished the restoration of the building in the Fall of 2010 and will now focus our efforts on the construction of the library. We hope to complete the construction this spring and finish the interior in Fall of 2011. Youssef Jini, the gate keeper for the igherm, was very excited about starting the next phase of the project.

“This project is for the next generation,” he said. “It is for our children and the future of Zawiya Ahansal.”

In addition, this spring we plan to begin the restoration of a second igherm in the village of Aguddim. The Moroccan Ministry of Culture will be paying for the restoration of this building and will send a project contractor and architect to meet with me. ACF will act as the on-site manager of this restoration. We are continuing discussions with the locals about the best use for this building; some of the ideas are a preschool or women’s birthing center.

Genevieve Chabot, a representative from the Global Midwife Education Foundation, will visit us in May. She will accompany Youssef Oulcadi, the president of Amezray SMNID, and myself on a trip to Rabat to visit the Moroccan Ministry of Health with the hopes of securing the necessary permissions to begin the Midwife Training Program. During this trip to Rabat we will also meet with officials at the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education.

All programs and projects are progressing well and the spring is shaping up to be fruitful.

Links:

Atlas Cultural Foundation

Moroccan Ministry of Culture partnership approval!

Cloe Medina Erickson — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:47:22 GMT

Igherm slated for restoration by Ministry partner.

I am very pleased to announce that the Moroccan Ministry of Culture has approved our partnership proposal. They have agreed to fund the restoration of a second igherm in the region (there are eight historic igherms). Work on this igherm will begin in April of 2011. The community is currently deciding on the best use for this igherm and is contemplating renovating it into a preschool or women’s birthing center. Either of these uses will compliment the library in the Amezray igherm.

The partnership from the Ministry means that as an organization all of our fundraising dollars will go directly to the uses within these historic buildings and to the management and operation costs of the development projects. The actual restoration will be funded by the Moroccan government.

“The ighrems (fortified granaries and saints’ houses) in Zawiya Ahansal have a great value and give beauty to the whole region because they are old historical monuments. “The igherms are our future and through them we can create future projects. They are everything, we don’t have anything else.”

Ahmed Amahdar, the Sheikh of Zawiya Ahansal.

Project expands to include women and newborn health

Cloe Medina Erickson — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:05:42 GMT

October 4, 2010
By Cloe Medina Erickson, Project Manager

Over the past six years I have had the opportunity to work intimately with
locals on the Igherm Restoration Project in the remote region of Zawiya
Ahansal, Morocco. We have successfully restored one of the region's eight
igherms (fortified granaries) and are in the initial phases of two more
restorations through the generosity of American Donors and partnerships
with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and the local community association
Amezray SMNID.

The initial goals of the Igherm Restoration Project were to preserve the
region's cultural heritage, through the restoration of their igherms, and
increase literacy rates in the region and supplement the inadequate
government education through the establishment of community education
projects within the restored igherms. Through our work other community
needs have come to light that are too great to ignore, especially that of
women's and newborn's health.

Rural Morocco has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates
in the developing world. This is due to many circumstances, including
remoteness, traditional beliefs and distance from clinics and hospitals.
Partnering with the Global Midwife Education Foundation,
www.midwifeeducation.org, we are currently in Morocco establishing a
program that will train 8 to 12 traditional birth attendants in 2011.
These birth attendants, along with a newly establishment government
clinic, will ultimately serve the region's population of over 10,000
people.

This initiative compliments the goals of preserving the region?s cultural
heritage and decreasing illiteracy and will brighten the future of young
women such as Saadiya.

Saadiya's bright eyes reflect the energy and innocence of a 17 year old.
She lives in the village of Aguddim; with a population of just over 1000
people it is one of the largest villages within 100 kilometers.

Saadiya giggles when she mentions her engagement to a
young man from Ouarzazate. Ouarzazate lies just over the rugged Atlas
Mountains to the east and is a big city in her eyes; it has hotels,
schools and even a hospital. She will get married when she turns 18, the
youngest legal age for marriage in Morocco.

She is able to read and write only a little due to her third grade
education. She desperately wanted to continue her schooling but
sacrificed her education because her family needed her at home to help
with field work, house work and her two younger sisters.
At this point in life she will probably never accomplish her hope of
higher education but because she has the rare opportunity to marry a man
from the "city" she will have an opportunity most women from Aguddim never
will, to give birth in a hospital.

"I am afraid to die in childbirth," she admits.

Exterior Renovation Complete!

Cloe Medina Erickson — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:02:38 GMT

New towers on the library.

I just returned from nearly four months working in the field. It was an extremely successful trip on numerous levels.

We finished the exterior renovation of the igherm including the martoub (stucco finish), new roofs and reconstruction of the six original decorative towers. The local association Amezray SMNID has provided the project with potable water and will be responsible for oversight of the library's operations and finances. The French Association Les Amis de Amezray has agreed to sponsor and oversee the training of locals to become librarians. Montana State University graduate architecture student Jaron Mickolio completed the design for the computer rooms, reading room and book stacks. The Caid of Zawiya Ahansal will be donating all of the local government's history books on the region, tribal records and family trees to be housed in the library. They want the library to be a place for researchers and professionals to come and study in addition to being for locals and school children. The library will serve over 10,000 local men, women and children.

During my visit I attended numerous meetings focused on the future of Zawiya Ahansal with the local government and tribal leaders including the Sheikh, Caid, Moqaddam and Caliph. At the moment Zawiya is lucky because its leaders are very open-minded and eager to develop the region in a sustainable manner that respects their culture. They are so grateful for all that we are doing in the region that on more than one occasion I saw these grown government men cry – with real tears of happiness for our work and efforts in the region!

"These historic buildings hold the history of Morocco and if we let them die then we will be letting an important piece of Morocco die with them," Sheikh Ahmed Amahdar

The Moroccan Ministry of Culture heard about the project and invited me to Beni Mellal, the provincial capital, to present our work. As a result of this presentation they have offered to partner with us and expand our work to include another project in the local village of Aguddim. This new project will begin in September and will include the restoration of a 300 year-old igherm into a professional residence. This igherm was originally a saint's house and once renovated will provide visiting researchers, authors, and artists a historic yet modern place to live and work for extended periods of time.

In addition to talking with the government about restoration projects we also talked about the most pressing needs in the region in the areas of education, health, and economics. They have provided me with a list of their top five needs. Among these is providing clean drinking water to five very small villages in the region, an ambulance, a snow plow (so the ambulance can get out in winter), trail work to Taghia, a boarding house for school girls and a garbage incinerator.

With our new partnerships in Morocco we hope to expand our mission and slowly include projects that focus on both restoration and health, education and economics.

What do you think is the highest priority in the region for our future projects?

I will return to Morocco in September and we will begin construction on the library, break ground on the professional's residence and begin discussions on our future goals.

Moqaddam, the village's tribal representative.

A local family that will benefit from the library.

Home of the future professional's residence.

Residence will be renovated to original condition.

Cloe Erickson meets with local leaders.

Links:

Project's Website

Restoration Resumes

Cloe Medina Erickson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:35:53 GMT

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The harsh winter of Morocco’s Central High Atlas Mountains is waning and restoration of the igherm is now able to resume for the nest two and a half months. Our goals for this period include completing the martoub (exterior stucco finish), refurbishing the traditional wood and clay roofs and rebuilding the six decorative towers. One week ago, the local restoration crew began collecting soil for the martoub in preparation for my arrival on March 31.

Mohammed Taiboosh, one of the restoration laborers and also a member of igherm’s proprietary tribe, Ait Bin Ahmed, has three sons that will benefit from the project.

“I am so happy and grateful for this project,” said Taiboosh, “it is going to provide educational opportunities that have never before been available in this region.”

Historically, the majority of the residents of Zawiya Ahansal are illiterate, but Taiboosh has hope for his childrens’ generation and believes the igherm project will help boost their positions in society and future opportunities.

“Literacy is the light for their future. Illiteracy is nothing but darkness.”

At the end of April l will lead a group of project donors on a ten-day excursion through Morocco. The trip is organized through Bella Treks LLC and will include a four-day visit to Zawiya Ahansal and the project site. The donors will meet with the people that will directly benefit from their generous donations.

For the second year, the project has partnered with Montana State University and will bring a group of students to Morocco for five weeks in Morocco. The students will work with the community on the establishment and design of the library, books stacks, computer room and coffee shop.

Cloe Medina Erickson, project manager

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project3

Spring '10 Construction Preparations

Cloe Medina Erickson — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:55:47 GMT

Martoub application.

While the region has been blanketed in cold and snowy weather the project team has been busy preparing for this spring and summer's work to begin. Construction on the igherm is slated to restart April 1. First, the team of local craftsmen will finish the martoub, protective lime plaster coating, on the exterior of the building. Next, with funding from the French Association Amis de Amezray, they will completely restore the igherm's roofs and rebuild the six towers' historic ornamentation. This will complete the exterior renovation of the igherm. If time allows before the heat of summer sets in, they will begin the renovation of the interior in preparation for the book stacks and also the renovation of the community room to house the computers donated by The Nobelity Foundation.

The local association, Amezray SMNID, has sent in a request to the Moroccan National Library for books. At the end of April Cloe Medina Erickson will bring a group of donors to visit the project and see the impact of their dollars first hand. And in May and June a group of university students will study with Erickson and work on the igherm.

Erickson meets with the association Amezray SMNID.

13 Computers Donated to Library

Cloe Medina Erickson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:49:47 GMT

Laptops arrived in Morocco last week.

Thanks to Dell, the 50x15 Foundation, and The Nobelity Project for donating five new laptops and eight new OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) computers to the library. The Dell laptops were delivered to Morocco last week and the OLPC's will arrive in the spring. The computers will be available for use in the library's community room and will provide previously unavailable access to 10,000 permanent and seasonal residents.

The Nobelity Project, Dell and 50x15 donate computers to library.

Cloe Medina Erickson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:10:25 GMT

School children running to school.

Thanks to The Nobelity Project, Dell, and the 50×15 foundation for donating 13 computers to the library! Through the Nobelity Project, a certified 501(c)3 education and action non-profit, 8 OLPC’s and 4 laptops have been donated for use in the community room of the library. The computers will be used to teach locals, adults and children, about basic computer use through a series of training workshops.

The Nobelity Project, founded by Turk Pipkin, is working towards a better future of all our children. One of our principal goals is to connect people all over the world with reliable information and innovative thinking on pressing global problems like global warming, the energy challenge, global health, economic disparity and development, cultural understanding, nuclear proliferation and general question of war and peace.

Turk Pipkin is the director of One Peace at a Time, an inspiring feature documentary highlighting solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. The film includes the insights of Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Physicist Steven Chu, (Barack Obama’s Secretary of Energy), Dr. Helene Gayle (CEO of CARE, International), American legend Willie Nelson and many others.

Young girls who will benefit from the new computers.

The library.

Links:

Summer '09 Update

Cloe Medina Erickson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:06:02 GMT

Foundation restoration.

Project Director, Cloe Medina Erickson, recently returned from Morocco after two busy and productive months on the Igherm Restoration and Library Project. The highlights of the trip included a visit from Salima Naji, a Moroccan architect and anthropologist who specializes in rammed earth architecture and the restoration of ighermen (Moroccan fortified granaries). She and her husband David Geoury, also an anthropologist, visited the project site during the first week of May and donated their invaluable time to perform a diagnosis of the structural integrity of the igherm. Salima found that the southwest corner of the building was the only area of extreme concern and in demand of immediate restoration. Of secondary concern was the foundation and the third area of concern was the roofs. During their visit the team: - established relationships with local craftsmen and laborers, - created budgets for the three areas of concern, - organized labor crews, including a team of three rammed earth master craftsmen from the neighboring village of Anergui to renovate the southwest corner. - wrote contracts assuring that throughout the project we will pay local wages ($6/day laborer, $9/day craftsmen). Renovations began the following week focusing on stabilization of the building and continued until the end of June. Throughout this time more progress was made than expected because the project’s limited funds were stretched by harvesting the majority of the construction materials (stone and earth) free of charge from the surrounding land. The following was accomplished: -complete foundation restoration on all facades -paving of the interior courtyard and entry with stone -extensive support buttressing of the southwest corner with large stone terraces -complete renovation of the southwest corner, including demolition and new rammed earth -initial façade renovation with new martoub (stucco made of lime, earth, and straw) Through a partnership with Montana State University, adjunct professor Bill Rea and seven university students spent six weeks working on the project in exchange for graduate and undergraduate credits from MSU’s School of Architecture. Their work focused on: - documentation of the building’s original system of rammed earth blocks - macro and micro circulation studies for the library - renderings of the stages of renovation - documentation on how the igherm can be used as an educational tool to locals and tourists - creation of a short film on the state of educational facilities in the region and a promotional film for future fundraising efforts - construction of a scale model of the igherm Cloe’s husband, Kristoffer Erickson, employed his knowledge of remote power systems gained as an expedition photographer and athlete for The North Face in the design and installation of the project’s solar electric system. The system was purchased with a $3000 grant from the TRA Fund, and will be used to power computers and cameras during the renovation phase until the opening of the library. At this time, it will be installed in its permanent role for lighting the book storage, reading/community room, and public computers. On May 27, two engineers from CERKAS, the Centre de Conservation et de Rehabilitation du Patrimoine Architectural des Zones Atlasiques et Subatlasiques, made the two day journey from their offices in Ouarzazate to visit the project. They performed a walk through providing advice on historically accurate structural rehabilitation methods and afterward gave their full approval of the project. Fall 2009 & Spring 2010 Work will resume in September and include the completion of the façade renovation and the collection and purchase of materials in preparation for work in the spring. Renovation of the building’s two roofs and six towers is planned to begin in April of 2010. This phase is funded in part by a 2,000 euro donation from the French association, Les Amis de Amezrai, and its local partner association, Amezrai SMNID. Fund raising efforts throughout this fall and winter will focus on raising another $2000 dollars needed for the roof and tower restoration as well as the funds needed, approximately $10,000, for the restoration of the interior of the building which will house the library.

Master earth builders rebuild southwest corner.

Facade repair with martoub.

Links:

Site Utility Installation

Cloe Medina Erickson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:04:13 GMT

Throughout the winter local project manager Youssef Jini worked with the Amzrai tribe to install running water on site. The water comes from a spring in the near by foothills; use was granted to us by the owner of the spring for the lifetime of the library. The water is important because it is necessary for mixing the earth during renovation. In addition, the locals built an access road to the building. This road will allow for easy transportation of stone used in foundation repair and wood for the ceilings and floors.

Project director, Cloe Medina Erickson, will arrive in Morocco April 28 and spend the next two months working on the beginning of the renovation. Seven American university students and two Moroccan students will work side by side with the locals for six weeks on the initial stages of the renovation. This program was made possible through a partnership with Montana State University. The team will work under the supervision of a master earth builder restorationist and master carpenter. The students will learn ancient earth building techniques.

Photos of the restoration work will be posted in July.

Please visit the project blog and website for more information: http://www.igherm.wordpress.com.

New Project Website

Cloe Medina Erickson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:51:54 GMT

Please visit the new project website and blog for the most up-to-date information and project status.

The most recent information added to the website is a copy of the As-Built Drawings from the Spring '08 Site Assessment Trip.

Enjoy and visit often!

Links:

Project Website & Blog

Spring ’08 Site Assessment

Cloe Medina Erickson — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:58:27 GMT

Mustapha Jini stands in the Amzrai Igherm, the future home of hi

Project Manager Cloe Medina Erickson and Architectural Consultant Todd Smith recently returned from an inspirational and productive visit to the project site in Zawiya Ahansal, Morocco. Cloe and Todd worked with local Project Manager Youssef Jini to accomplish the following goals: • Perform a full site and building assessment. • Document the building in drawings and photographs. • Finalize building and site ownership paperwork with the Moroccan government. • Finalize partnership and responsibility agreement with locals. • Prepare for utility installation and initial stages of construction. In addition, Cloe traveled to the capital city of Rabat for a meeting at the Moroccan National Library. The library has agreed to gift books to the project including books in Arabic and French and ranging in topic from school textbooks to adult. They have also agreed to help with importation of books from the United States and France, and to mentor the locals on the establishment of the library. Accomplishments to Date • Donation of property and building for the restoration & establishment of the library. • Project approval from locals - private, public and government. • Local volunteer labor force in place. • Book drive leaders in Morocco, France and the United States. • Detailed site and building assessments. Document to be completed June 2008. Summer/Fall 2008 Next Steps • Fund raising. • Utility installation on site. • Restoration design.

Project team on site in Morocco.

Links:

Visit the new project blog.

Article and video about project region.

Cloe Medina Erickson — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:18:23 GMT

An article and video about the project region has just been posted to Saudi Aramco World Magazine's website. The article focuses on the growing impact and change which is occurring due to tourism and outside influence.

Links:

Saudi Aramco World article and video.

Library restoration begins.

Cloe Medina Erickson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:33:56 GMT

Renovation of the Kasbah into a library is beginning.

Because of the generous donations received through GlobalGiving’s partnership with Erickson Creative Group initial restoration of the Kasbah, which will house the regional library, is beginning! In April, I will travel to the village of Amzrai with an architectural consultant in order to complete a detailed assessment and documentation of the Kasbah’s current structural state. These drawings will be the base documents for the design, restoration and budget. In addition, we will work directly with locals who are donating their time, to complete a thorough cleaning of the 300-year-old structure. These individuals are committed to the establishment of the library and are passionately dedicated to providing education to the region’s women and children. Public involvement including parents, students and local governments is essential to sustainable education reform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Morocco ranks lowest among the countries of the MENA region in terms of access, efficiency, gender disparity and quality of education according to a recent World Bank report. An executive summary of the report is available here: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMENA/Resources/EDU_Summary_ENG.pdf. One-half of Morocco’s population remains illiterate and with over 60% of the population under the age of 30, public access to reading materials is an essential component to quality education in remote regions. This project has already made a difference in the locals’ moral and aspirations for their children’s future.

Berber women and children will read and write.

Links:

World Bank MENA Education Reform Report

Local inspiration fuels project expansion.

Cloe Medina Erickson — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:52:28 GMT

Numerous developments have arisen during the last month as a result of Moroccan locals' commitment and excitement for this partnership with Erickson Creative Group. The village of Amzrai has donated land and their historic Kasbah to the project for restoration and location of the regional library. In addition, 24 families from the village have committed to donating labor for the construction and one family has promised to provide volunteer librarians. Also, three neighboring villages have become interested in the project and have requested libraries in their villages. Families in these villages have already committed to donating land and/or buildings for the libraries. The local effort is making this a very widespread success and will result in over 5000 children and adults having access to reading materials. Having a library in each village, rather than one for the entire region, will provide access to reading materials to women and girls; a development that was requested by the locals.