Many of you receiving this special project report have long supported our work with High Atlas girls' education and sustainable agriculture at the Dar Taliba da Ourika boarding house. Others of you have just joined us, responding generously to a new, critical emergent need.
In the immediate aftermath of a severe quake, Dar Taliba remains standing. Just before the start of the school year, though, the girls were still at home with their families, many of whom reside in remote High Atlas communities near the quake's epicentre. We have transformed this project accordingly, pivoting in this moment to honor our team's unstinting commitment to High Atlas community resilience and capacity to help. Below you will find a summary of the re-oriented project, followed by an dispatch from the field today.
Welcome--and thank you for making our work possible. We will keep you updated.
~~~Summary
Just before midnight on 8 September 2023, a massive earthquake struck Marrakech and the High Atlas with deadly force. Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), with our primary partner, Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association (MBLA) and additional local partners, are committed to providing immediate and long-term support to alleviate the immense suffering of rural communities where we have been working for more than a decade.
Our hearts ache as many in our team and communities have lost their families and seen their homes reduced to rubble. These villages are amongst the most marginalised and remote in Morocco, and we need your support to help us provide relief and rebuild. It pains us to share devastating news from our community researcher, Fadma, in Talat Naikoube. She's an indispensable part of our team, supporting our fieldwork in Al-Haouz. Tragically, she has lost close family members, and her village has been severely affected.
What is the problem?
The earthquake was the strongest to hit central Morocco in more than a century. Over 2,000 lives have been lost and countless homes, shops and other buildings have been destroyed. Displaced people in High Atlas communities need urgent assistance including clothing, food, shelter and water. Over the long term, these communities will need to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
How will this project address the problem?
GDF, with MBLA, is directly assisting High Atlas communities. Given our deep ties with the region, we are working on the ground with our Moroccan partners to address the most urgent needs including emergency medical supplies, food, water, shelter and transport. We are committed to continue our support to assist communities with their long-term recovery.
Potential long-term impact
Global Diversity Foundation and MBLA have supported resilience of traditional livelihoods in the High Atlas for over a decade. Once the urgent aid work is over, we will use funds to help families rebuild their homes, incorporating earthquake-resistant construction techniques, and re-establish their traditional ways of living and working. Our approach is community-led and prioritises their pressing needs over the coming months to ensure that people’s lives and livelihoods are rehabilitated as soon as possible.
Update, September 10th, 8 pm Morocco time.
Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of incredible donors, we have raised 57,000 GBP in 24 hours across our 2 crowdfunding campaigns on Paypal and GlobalGiving. Currently, these funds are being used to directly buy urgent supplies and pay for their transport.
Our GDF-MBLA team travelled this morning to Talat N Yacoub, a village located at the epicentre of the earthquake to distribute food and water. We witnessed heartbreaking devastation and spoke to locals who have been sleeping outside, as their homes have crumbled. According to villagers and local authorities, we were the first to bring non governmental aid to the area.
We worked with local authorities to distribute supplies in areas where access is limited. Here is a map we are updating to show the locations we have reached. We also collated urgent needs from the ground today and are working on procuring medicines, first aid, sanitary products, tents and blankets as a priority. In collaboration with CNN and BBC, we provided updates and assisted in live coverage of relief efforts.
We are partnering with several local organisations to amplify relief efforts and reach as many affected people as possible. We are also continuously populating lists of volunteers, needs, partner organisations and communities which need the most help. Tomorrow, 11 September 2023, we will be travelling to two sites (Angale commune and Imegdale) to distribute supplies.
At the moment, we are urgently trying to procure tents and blankets for those displaced. Having spoken directly to Decathlon and other providers in Morocco, we have established that supplies of these have run out or are limited in Morocco. As of 10 September, 2023, we are urgently trying to source these from overseas. If you or your organisation can assist in this matter, kindly reach out to simran@global-diversity.org.
List of partners of GDF and MBLA in this effort to date:
Amis du CHU
International Learning Movement
Cadi Ayyad University
CorpsAfrica
EBF
Centre d'Investissment
Imal Initiative (& CAM Climate Action Maroc)
Thank you for reading, and for accompanying us. Your support enlivens us, and keeps our team going in the face of this disaster.
With the start of the school year around the corner, Dar Taliba students will return to a garden full of produce and activity!
As you know from our last update, we are preparing our botanical learning garden for fall workshops with students. Mr. El Hossain, a local community member, has joined us as a gardener to support deep soil flipping and expanding the cultivation zones. This is a long and ongoing mission, but great progress has been made!
While the girls are away for the summer, the garden is still producing vegetables, fruits, and herbs. The school has arranged distribution of summer harvests for students to enjoy with their families.
The focus of garden maintenance has been on minimizing water loss, especially with the record heat this summer. Our most recent workshop in the garden was dedicated to the oyas irrigation system, an agroecological practice that consists of burying water-filled clay pots underground. This way, water can dissipate into the soil depending on plant needs. It is an extremely water-efficient method that prevents excessive evaporation and water runoff. The girls assisted in burying ten oyas throughout the garden which have proved to be invaluable for this summer’s garden management.
We are excited to welcome the girls back once school is in session. Thanks to the support of our GlobalGiving friends, we are looking forward to another amazing year for the girls of Dar Taliba.
The beginning of 2023 has been a very busy time period for our Dar Taliba (boarding school) girls in the Ourika Valley. Due to school exams, various school vacations, and the holy month of Ramadan, it’s been a busy season for the girls. However, we were able to get down to Dar Taliba at the beginning of March to host a workshop with the girls, despite all the scheduling madness.
On March 3, 2023, Dr Omar Saadani Hassani, our agroecology coordinator, did a workshop with 20 girls from the Dar Taliba entitled Life in Our Soils, where he talked about the stages of soil formation, ocean formation and climate change. Our team is always excited to create safe spaces like these for the Dar Taliba girls because they allow the girls to explore who they are and their creativity, while also giving them the opportunity to learn about the environment and what they can do to protect it.
The first activity of the workshop was a drawing activity, where Ourika’s most talented girls, at least in our opinion, drew countless drawings that portrayed the plant life cycle. Each drawing was unique and gave us an interesting window into the curious minds of these young ladies.
During the workshop, Dr Omar taught the girls about the crucial role that soil plays in our ecosystem and the different stages of soil formation. As always, Dr Omar explained these topics, which can be a little dry, in a fun and lighthearted manner that kept the girls focused and engaged throughout the entire workshop.
Initially, Dr Omar was only going to focus on the topic of soil. However, after seeing the excitement and enthusiasm of the Dar Taliba girls grow during the workshop, he decided to also talk about the ocean, the stages of its formation on the Earth and the water cycle.
Dr Omar concluded the workshop with a discussion about climate change and the negative impact that it’s having on our environment, food security and economies. This topic created a lively debate among the Dar Taliba girls and gave them an opportunity to think about the global climate crisis and express their opinions on it.
The end of the 2022-2023 academic year in Morocco is fast approaching. However, before it ends, we hope to deliver more educational workshops to the girls at the Dar Taliba in Ourika Valley on various topics including the benefits and uses of different medicinal and aromatic plants, biodiversity, sustainable eating practices for a healthier planet, and seed and plant care for independent growers.
As always, we would like to thank you, our GlobalGiving family, for your ongoing support of the environmental educational activities that we do for the girls at the Dar Taliba in Ourika Valley. We hope 2023 has been an amazing year for you so far and we look forward to sharing our next update with you this summer.
The school year has begun in Ourika Valley and over 120 new girls from neighboring villages have made Dar Taliba (the boarding school) their new home. Before we could start our activities for the new students, we had to prepare the botanical garden. We've hired local community members to help our gardener, Mr. El Hossain, with deep soil flipping and expanding cultivation zones. Given the state of the soil as a result of excessive cultivation and invasive weeds, this mission took several weeks and is still ongoing.
However, we could not wait any longer to reunite with the girls of Dar Taliba, and launch our workshops for this year. Our first workshop invited over 50 girls to watch the film documentary “Ait Atta: Nomads of the High Atlas' ', produced by Global Diversity Foundation in collaboration with The Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association. The movie follows the Ben Youssef family’s arduous transhumant journey from the desert-like landscape of Nkob to the green pastures of Agdal Igourdane, throughout uneven terrain of steep climbs and descents of the High Atlas Mountains.
The workshop aimed to introduce the girls to the Agdal ancestral practice, which is a communal land management system that has been practised for centuries in the High Atlas Mountains. The practice consists of restricting access to chosen highland pastures in spring months, allowing plants to regenerate each year, and as agreed upon by participating tribes. The movie was followed by a discussion on the importance of preserving the Agdal practice and the role nomads and regulated grazing play in conserving local biodiversity.
Our second workshop provided an opportunity for over 30 new girls to become acquainted with the botanical garden, following a brief presentation of the space and our project, welcoming them to the garden and explaining how it is available to them at all times, even when our team is not present.
We also decided to dedicate this workshop to presenting the oyas irrigation system, which is an agroecological practice that consists of burying water-filled clay pots underground. This way, water can dissipate into the soil as needed. It is an extremely water-efficient method that prevents excessive evaporation and water runoff.
The girls assisted in burying ten oyas in the garden after our presentation. We were delighted to witness the girls' sense of curiosity and answer their questions regarding this practice and the plants they observed in the garden.
We concluded our workshop by asking them to come up with ideas for what they'd like to do next, and it seems that everyone enjoys being close to nature and soil, as everyone is set on cultivating vegetables for our next workshop.
Find a short video of our workshop here.
Thanks to the support of our GlobalGiving friends, we are looking forward to another amazing year for the girls of Dar Taliba and we can’t wait to tell you all about it in our upcoming reports.
Dar Taliba's school year has come to an end, and the girls have left the boarding school to enjoy the summer break with their families. However, this did not put an end to our work; we still needed to squeeze in one more activity before wrapping things up.
One of the things on our minds this year has been how to broaden our impact and convert the garden into a destination for the wider public of Marrakech and its surroundings, a space that welcomes everyone who is passionate about local biodiversity, or is simply curious to learn more about our environmental programme. Therefore, for our final activity, we've decided to invite urban schools to visit the Dar Taliba garden space and discuss the possibility of having their students participate in future activities.
Eleven teachers and administrative staff from six Marrakech schools joined us for a day in the garden, during which our team introduced the programme, its goals, and its action plan. Our visitors were very impressed and shared our interest to add the Dar Taliba Garden to their school's extracurricular activities agenda. This step will pave the way for new interactions and exchanges between Dar Taliba's girls and students from urban areas.
Aside from having more beneficiaries in the garden's activities, this could be a push for these schools to replicate our project on their school grounds and permanently implement an environmental approach to their curriculums. If this were to happen in the future, we would consider it a huge win for Morocco's biodiversity.
Speaking of replicating inspiring and impactful projects, you will be pleased to know that the Dar Taliba girls took part in the filming of a crowdfunding video produced by our partner, the Moroccan Biodiversity & Livelihoods Association. This project falls under their current mission to replicate the Dar Taliba project on the grounds of another boarding school located in the heart of the High Atlas Mountains.
You can watch the video here, and get a glimpse of what the harvest season looks like for our girls in Ourika Valley.
Lastly, we'd like to thank all of our GlobalGiving donors for their generous contributions. You truly make a difference in the lives of the 154 Dar Taliba girls. Your contributions not only help to implement our activities, but also ensure that the Dar Taliba gardener has all of the necessary equipment and supplies to grow all of the plants, vegetables, and fruits for the much-awaited harvest season.
This year's harvest season meant that the girls were once again connected to the source of the food served to them during lunches; they get to help harvest the vegetables and aromatic plants and run to the garden whenever they want a quick fruit snack.
Until our next report, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram or visit our website for more updates about new activities at the Dar Taliba school garden and the students.
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