Support High Atlas community earthquake resilience

Since beginning the rehabilitation of the gardens at the Lalla Aouda Saadia high school, GDF and its partners have made great efforts to involve students, teaching staff and administration in the project. The success of the project thus far is demonstrated by the broad participation of school members on all levels. Led by their teachers, the girls have been contributing to each step of the project. While cleaning and tending to the gardens, they have been learning how to compost and identify plants.

In June, Global Diversity Foundation signed a partnership with an association at Lalla Aouda Saadia that aims to support school success, whose president is the headmaster at the school. This joint cooperation will help to facilitate the rehabilitation of the garden.

On 18 June, Charles Hamilton, who is conducting a Master study on the rehabilitation of green space around Lalla Aouda Saadia, presented his research to the school’s director, numerous students and representatives of a local organization.

As part of the ongoing Lalla Aouda Saadia school garden project, GDF is working on ethnobotanical education with the students. During the past academic year, thirty students conducted their own field research by interviewing Marrakechi herbalists about important cultural recipes. GDF is now organizing a database of the girls’ findings, titled, “An Ethnobotanical Study of Five Traditional Women’s Recipes.”  In the autumn of this year, the girls will be able to re-examine, analyze, and discuss their own data.  We hope that this will be the first of many such educational initiatives at Lalla Aouda Saadia.

Thanks to its generous donors, GDF has been able to not only lay the groundwork for Lalla Aouda Saadia’s gardens, but to build the educational framework that will allow students to explore their city’s rich ethnobotanical traditions.