Disaster Response Morocco Project #7011

Support High Atlas community earthquake resilience

by Global Diversity Foundation

Project Report | Aug 26, 2022
Big Plans to Expand Dar Taliba Programme's Impact

By Ibtissam Bouseta | Communications Officer

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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Apr 29, 2022
Spring and Seeds: good times in the Dar Taliba school garden

By Pommelien Da Silva Cosme | Project Leader

Our favourite season at the Dar Taliba school garden has arrived: it’s finally Spring! “I love how everything comes to life during this time,” says Dar Taliba gardener Al Housseine. “The garden is full of colours and the trees full of fruits,” he adds.

Since we reported last, we organised a series of workshops on seeds - the source of all life in the school garden. Our partner MBLA held an introduction session in early April, during which we talked about traditional seeds and the important role they play in maintaining healthy agricultural practices. We also demonstrated practical examples of how seeds are collected and stored after which we played some fun games.

During the game “Guess the seeds” each student was given a number of seeds in their hands after which they had to guess which plant or vegetable the seed was from. This game really taught the girls how diverse seeds are in size, colour and shape.

At the end of the day, we held a small outdoor cooking workshop. To start, the girls went out in the garden to harvest fresh lettuce, coriander, peppers, lemons and other organic ingredients. We then enjoyed seeing all the students using their own recipes to prepare an organic and yummy salad.

Now that the students had learned all about seed diversity and their importance, it was time to learn some practical skills. Building on the first session, we organised a practical workshop on seed collection at the end of April. “Seeds are the source of all our food,” Meryem, MBLA agronomist and workshop facilitator, says. “Without seeds there is no biodiversity. It’s important that the Dar Taliba students learn about the important value of seeds and how they can conserve them.”

Having dried lots of plants and vegetables during the past months, we had bags of different seeds that had to be collected, cleaned and stored. Not an easy task, especially if you look at the size of onion seeds (see below). But the Dar Taliba girls did an amazing job and now have a collection of over 20 different seed species stored in their own seed bank!

We want to thank all our GlobalGiving donors for your generous donations. You truly make a difference for the 154 girls at Dar Taliba. Their school garden is not just any green space; it encourages young girls to explore their natural environment, to learn about cultural traditions of their communities and to connect with each other.

We look forward to the upcoming activities during the next few weeks which include a knowledge exchange with a successful female cooperative from the central High Atlas, visits from surrounding schools and hopefully a second trip to Marrakech. Stay tuned!

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

Students during the "Guess the seeds" game

Students collecting and cleaning seeds

Tiny black onion seeds

Preparing yummy salads

Seeds ready to be stored in the seedbank!

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Jan 4, 2022
From Ourika to Marrakech: a rural-urban exchange for the Dar Taliba girls!

By Pommelien da Silva Cosme | Project Leader

First of all, happy new year to all our GlobalGiving friends! Your support this past year has allowed us to continue supporting the Dar Taliba boarding house and growing the school garden despite the challenges we faced due to national Covid-19 restrictions. We hope we can continue to grow this project and our GlobalGiving community in 2022 and wish you all health and happiness!

As schools remained closed in Morocco until October due to Covid-19, we have been focusing our energy on creating an exciting new activities for the second half of the school year which will kick of this month for all 154 students that are currently in residence at Dar Taliba. Meanwhile, Dar Taliba director Fatema and gardener Al Housseine have been busy planting seeds and vegetables with the girls. The garden is bursting with life and greens, and the first-year students are discovering all the Dar Taliba school garden has to offer: fruits, vegetables, medinical herbs, endemic species and lots of seeds!

We are so pleased to share with you all that we organised our first rural-urban exchange in November with students from Dar Taliba and local students of the Tizgui primary school in Marrakech. We held an interactive workshop on agroecology during which students collaborated together in small mixed groups in order to increase levels of exchange between participants from urban and rural areas. The day also included a planting activity in local gardens, a tasting session of High Atlas food products and an art activity to create drawings of agro ecological farms (see photos below).

The workshops offered the Dar Taliba girls an opportunity to learn more about agroecology in an interactive and fun way, while also interacting with a new group of students and exchanging their traditional knowledge with them. Moreover, they really enjoyed going to Marrakech city and changing their usual environment for a day!

Thanks to the support of our GlobalGiving friends, we will be able to offer more of these exchanges in 2022 between the Dar Taliba girls, other students and local actors in the region.

Until our next update, 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.

Drawing agroecological farms

Dar Taliba students planting bean seeds

Students taking care of the plant nursery

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