Sami's Project will plant 5,000 fruit and nut trees with young children in 96 participating Moroccan schools and villages. HAF's staff along with local teachers and community leaders will discuss with students the social and environmental benefits of tree planting, raising awareness of their value. By providing environmental skills and knowledge to rural school children, they are empowered to protect their local environment and improve their livelihoods.
Rural Morocco is challenged by drought, erosion and desertification. Morocco's subsistence farming coupled with a weak structural processing capacity continues to reduce entrepreneurial capital and thwart human development. This initiative enables children to experience at a young age that they can make a difference. Inspired by Sami, whose short life of struggle against cancer and his love of the outdoors is now empowering so many children to become generative adults as environmental stewards.
Sami's Project engages rural students in conversations about tree planting, cultivating, and protecting to create future generations of proactive stewards of the earth. Sami's Project increases awareness of the wide-ranging benefits (environmental, economic etc.) of fruit trees, particularly those not requiring pesticides. Students learn about the benefits of transitioning to plant cash-crops, most commonly fruit trees, to generate greater income.
Empowering young people from subsistence agricultural families to understand the value of modern arboriculture that is environmentally friendly allows them to break the cycle of poverty and achieve integrated benefits: doubling (on average) household incomes, diversifying the economy and diets, strengthening the local environment, building technical skills, and establishing democratic processes.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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