Education Morocco Project #6480

Field Train Students, CSOs & Officials in Morocco

by High Atlas Foundation

Project Report | Mar 24, 2023
Evaluation & Monitoring of Literacy Classes in Beni Mellal-Khenifra

By Bouchra Zine | HAF Program Coordinator

HAF staff recently traveled to the Beni Mellal-Khenifra region to assess the progress of HAF’s literacy programs, funded by the European Union. Three hundred seventy-eight (378) rural women have participated in the literacy programs, which began in July 2022. They received reading, writing, and math education. To ensure the effectiveness of the program and its implementation, the team is currently conducting monitoring and evaluation fieldwork, in which they visit cooperatives and groups of 411 women aged between 30 and 70 who are attending the literacy classes.

Sanae, HAF’s Program Manager, and Bouchra, HAF’s Field Coordinator for Beni Mellal Khenifra's Family Literacy program, began the field trips on February 7, 2023 by attending classes alongside participants to assess their progress. The instructors have taught a total of 192 hours since July 2022, with each group studying 24 hours per month. They devote six hours to each subject included in the program: math, reading comprehension, writing skills and memorizing the Holy Quran. The team employed data collection techniques to gain a deeper knowledge of which aspects of the program are having an impact and what needs improvement. To evaluate the status of participants’ learning, they score the participants' proficiency in math, reading, writing, and memorizing the Holy Quran. Additionally, they evaluate the instructors' efforts and whether they apply what they learn to the instructors' instruction.

The field tours began in the province of Beni Mellal with three cooperatives of 34 women (Yamna cooperative, El Yad El Wahida cooperative and Lahlinou cooperative). The team then traveled to the province of Fquih Ben Saleh to conduct evaluation and monitoring for Akhawat Kharouba cooperative with 20 participants. Finally, it was time to travel to the province of Azilal to attend classes with four cooperatives made up of a total of 46 women (Tislit Nourtan cooperative, Abrid Nlkhir cooperative, Nisae Aska cooperative and Wardat Al Atlas cooperative).

Through these field tours, HAF staff observed that every group of women was different in some ways. In certain instructors' classes, the previous expertise, hard work, and high teaching motivation of the instructor were very obvious. Other instructors, however, used the team's suggestions to enhance their classes and encourage more women to attend and work hard in class.

The team will visit the other cooperatives and groups of women in March.

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Mar 16, 2023
Making a Decision is a Change

By Ibtissam Niri | HAF Program Manager

After three years have passed since the establishment of the women’s cooperative. I witnessed its upbringing. I am here today the 6th of January to visit the cooperative again.

The women's cooperative, or rather the group of women, was the first group that was visited immediately after starting work with the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program in July 2019, which is implemented by HAF in Morocco. In that meeting, the team discovered the women's desire to do any activities that help them empower themselves economically and work to earn some money.

Through their desire for economic empowerment, HAF decided to give them an opportunity for self-empowerment as well as economic. Through the workshop that they spent together, the women were able to come up with the idea of establishing an agricultural cooperative, which, after a few months, became a reality.

The cooperative included 13 members and its main activity was producing couscous and Moroccan pastries, in addition to selling medicinal and aromatic herbs found in the region. The cooperative benefited from two F2F assignments in food safety training (conducted by Deneen Walker Rief in Feb 2020) and recordkeeping training (conducted by Basma Okbi in March 2021).

Immediately after the pandemic, the world returned to normal life, but the cooperative found itself in a spiral of financial and other organizational problems through which it was unable to move forward, and what worsened the host situation was the personal problems of the members and the conflicts between others. As a result, some of the members decided to leave the cooperative and stop working with it.

"I no longer have a place among you. My dreams and aspirations started here, but they no longer find a place to grow and enlarge, so my career will stop here to start somewhere else. I may not have been successful as a president, but I found myself and my heart, I can flow with change, thanks to the empowerment journey and F2F program that supported us to know when and where we can make decisions and how we can make it,” said Malika the ex-president of the cooperative.

“All my energy and my patience have been used up negatively, trying to keep silent, and not clarify things is our big mistake, and not move forward. Today, it’s time to clarify where we are now and what is next,” said Mrs. Fadma, a member of the cooperative.

From their discussion, the women understood that they need to test their inner soil, remove all the negative thoughts and re-envision what they understood in 2019 by making a logical decision.

Based on that, the women came to the decision to do a general assembly and remove the members who do not work with the cooperative instead of dissolve it.

“The Al Jamaane Cooperative doesn’t exist anymore for me, but the support, the tools, and the principles that I learned from the training are an added value that helps me to not give up. I promise myself to establish a new cooperative in my town and dedicate all my time to save it,” Malika the ex-president said.

Thinking about concrete impacts was what I wanted to record after the meeting. However, when I heard and saw their strong reactions and the big difference between 2019 and today, I concluded the real impact of the program was personal and that reflected positively on their personalities and their future aspirations.

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Feb 9, 2023
Teaching English with students at University Cadi Ayyad

By Youssef Mazdou | HAF Program Assistant

In January 2023, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), in partnership with the Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences of the Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech and the Legal Clinic Association for Studies and Research, organized weekly English classes for a group of students. The initiative is part of a program for promoting civil society-university engagement which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

Two interns from HAF, Yvette and Dávid, are providing instruction with the students. It was the first time that HAF provided English classes at the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences and it has proven to be a great experience, showing how HAF´s partnership with the university can grow.

Legal clinic students from various disciplines participate in the lessons which focus mainly on developing language skills that students can use in their professional lives, primarily covering reading comprehension and conversation. To improve their speaking and writing abilities, students talk about movies and write about their personal experiences. Developing these crucial skills will be very helpful in their professional life but also in other areas of personal growth.

Considering the important role youth development plays in achieving sustainable development in Morocco, HAF strongly believes that teaching languages with legal clinic students - and literacy as HAF does with members of rural women’s cooperatives and their children - is an integral part of enabling them to follow their aspirations and achieve their goals.

I realized that I, myself, was eager to improve my English. I believe that learning this international language will open up many opportunities for me and help me advance my professional career and reach my potential. The classes organized by HAF were the ideal place to do so as I acquired valuable educational vocabulary and I was able to take my English to the next level. Working with other students and the enthusiastic HAF volunteers as well as seeing how English classes can have a big impact on the professional career of students motivated everyone to do their best.

With the support of the mentors the students of the legal clinic in Marrakech were able to improve their written and verbal skills in English by a lot. They were very happy that we came and they would like us to come back to practice speaking English with them. Them taking the initiative to try to continue the lessons showed that they really enjoyed the classes and that they are eager to develop themselves, their knowledge and their community.

The objective of the English classes remains to help students of the legal clinic achieve their academic and professional goals. Providing guidance and knowledge to a group of non-native English speakers is of educational value and it is an example of how HAF and its partners in Morocco promote sustainable development and help people reach their full potential.

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