By Mathilde COLLETTA | Corporate partnership executive
Last school year ended on a high note and I am thrilled to share these good news with you!
Great successes in 2015, thanks to your support!
One of the main purpose of our program in Imzouren is to make sure that the children and kids living in these underprivileges single mother families get the chance to continue their studies as long as they can and want, so that they can then break the vicious circle of poverty.
Eventually, the educational support, tutoring classes, learner’s skills development… all the efforts of our educational team finally bore fruits, since most of our kids have passed their final exams successfully! I am proud to announce you that all five candidates got their Baccalaureate certificate and students following a vocational training also obtained a 100% success! 95% of our kids attending primary school passed to the next level. As in all Morocco, the success rate is lower in secondary school: 84% of our kids passed to the next level.
Enough with the figures, let me tell you a bit about three of our successful youths:
Houda, a very determined young girl got her Baccalauerate certificate in the first session: she is the only of our 5 candidates who managed it this year, and we are very proud of her.
Mehdi, another baccalaureate candidate, was in a critical condition last semester. You can imagine his joy (and ours) when he triumphed and passed his exam with success! He is now getting better and better, and we are sure that this success helped him in his recovery.
Do you recall Saber? He had always dreamt of becoming a police officer but had found out last year that, because of his health condition, he could never become one. Well we have some good news for you: his health improved and his condition is now steady, and above all, he finally decided to resume his studies and in parallel to set up an Income Generating Revenue to support himself in the city of Oujda. On top of this project, he has decided to achieve another dream of his: he wants to become a referee so he will prepare the International Confederation of Basketball competitive exam.
To close this successful year, our children participated in the school year end show and gave free rein to their talents in singing, dancing and acting in comic skits and sketches.
After a year of zealous labor, youths have opted for paid internship in car repairing, sales assistant, or other summer jobs and in their free time, enjoyed the sea near Imzouren.
The mothers also ended a zealous year
The mothers have completed their training and followed the recommendations of individual and collective meetings with the program coordinators. One important meeting was held with a micro credit association called "ARDI", which could help our single mothers willing to set up an Income Genereting Activity, either alone or within a cooperative. The program coordinators are now helping the beneficiaries to build their files and apply for microcredit.
Let me give you an update about Fatema, our cordon bleu! She continues to seduce customers with her delicious dishes and was sought by all the families in celebrations of marriages. We wish her even more success.
Oum was another successful mother last quarter: after following a training thanks to your support, she participated in the first Imzouren hair-dressing competition. In this very conservative region, mostly men were participating in the competition and, guess what, she beat them all, she even overcame her instructor! She received the first prize from the hands of the municipality president, blushing on stage. Oum is not the extrovert type, but this competition helped a lot spread her name as a good hairdresser and find jobs. Everyone was sollicitating her for marriage parties this summer!
I want to thank you all for your amazing support: thanks to your help and the program coordinators hard work, 8 families are now autonomous! But in this region, more are needing help. We are already conducting social surveys on the field to select new single mother families living in precarious condition and needing special support to make sure children’s rights are respected and poverty circle can be broken.
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