Improve Rural Moroccan Schools: Sami's Project

On Tuesday, April 9, 2019, the HAF went to Tassa Ouirgane, a rural commune located in the Atlas Mountains 90 kilometers away from Marrakech to carry out an activity under the theme of the environment.  The purpose of this visit in partnership with the United Nations Development Program was first to raise awareness of ecology among a young public, then to support them in collecting waste and finally to create a compost that they can then maintain in the municipality. This day was supervised and animated by Amina El Hajjami (Project Director) who was accompanied by Ilyas Ben Daoud (social network manager, photographer and film director), Fatima-Zahra Lahrire, Rachidelouah Soussi, and myself currently in internship with the foundation.

First of all, we were given a wonderful welcome by the women of the village who had prepared a breakfast for us. In the morning, Amina first focused on raising children's ecological awareness. She defined the concept of environment, asked the children about their knowledge on this subject and what it meant to them. They were then able to work together to find out what the causes were, what solutions could be found to these problems and also to consider how they could protect the environment, whether with small actions or more important ones. At the end of the presentation, the children were able to evaluate what they had learned and sign an attendance sheet, which was for them a synonym for making a commitment to the environmental workshops.

The first concrete action took place in the afternoon. Some children went looking for the best places to collect waste while we were preparing the material for the collection. All the children and ourselves then equipped themselves with gloves and garbage bags to collect as much waste as possible. The children were then able to see the large amount of plastic in the nature and all the garbage bags were filled at an incredible speed, as the children were bursting with energy and saw this action as a real challenge.

When all the garbage bags were full, Amina started a composting activity. She explained to the children the difference between all types of waste and asked them to collect weeds, bark and soil to start composting. The children were asked to guess whether this waste was composed of nitrogen or CO2. Overall, the children were very involved from beginning to end in all activities, both in terms of awareness and concrete actions.

This visit to Tassa Ouirgane was not the first since the HAF had already visited this commune before with agriculture as a theme. The aim now being in the future to create a women's cooperative in this commune in order to empower them in this theme and to create a responsible agriculture. It was a very rewarding day on a human level, and seeing how grateful children and young women were for the foundation's activities was a goal in itself.