Field Train Students, CSOs & Officials in Morocco

The 2nd International Congress on Entrepreneurship, Creativity, and Managerial Innovation was held on November 9th, in Dakhla, with the participation of researchers and academics from Morocco and abroad.

Organized by the National School of Business and Management (ENCG) of Dakhla, in partnership with the Dakhla Oued Eddahab Regional Council, the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research (CNRST), and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), this conference aimed to exchange and share experiences and research results on all aspects of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation management.

This event aimed to help actors from all sectors improve their management capacities and raise awareness of the business world's newest challenges and changes.

HAF Project Director, Hajiba, and I attended on behalf of the High Atlas Foundation after receiving an official invitation from the organizers.

In a speech, Aziz, Director of the ENCG of Dakhla, remarked that this international scientific conference brought together a host of academics, professionals and experts from a diversity of disciplines and backgrounds. 

He also added that the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Region offers great potential for entrepreneurship as it is a tourist destination with products tailored to the regional ecosystem.

Rao, the Vice President for Research and Innovation at VCU, highlighted the historical relationship and the various fields of cooperation between the Kingdom of Morocco and the United States, especially in the academic field.

In this context, Mr. Rao noted that he was very impressed by the abilities and talents of ENCG Dakhla students, expressing his determination to collaborate with this institution in many areas.

The event was also marked by the signing of three memoranda of understanding, the first between ENCG, VCU, and the Regional Council, for the development of academic and cultural exchanges, the promotion of innovation, and the improvement of teaching and learning.

The second MOU was signed between VCU and the University Ibn Zohr, to strengthen cooperation between them and internationalize higher education, while the third one was signed between ENCG and Said University.

The HAF team engaged with local and regional representatives and community members and connected with national and international players as well. For example, I had the pleasure of meeting Marco Van Gelderen, Associate Professor at Vrije University, Amsterdam. This great scholar gave me helpful insights on psychology and the importance of NGO work. He showed me, for example, that the tree-planting activities that we do at HAF on a large scale are helping humanity at large in the face of the impending climate change disaster just as the propagation of electric cars is offsetting the carbon emissions of fossil fuels’ cars. NGOs are aiming at achieving the same purpose with a different approach.

We also spoke about the great psychologists who impacted each of us, from Freud to Carl Jung to Otto Rank and others. He suggested many relevant books to me as well. All in all, it was a chance for me to learn a lot from an accomplished psychologist.

The program of this two-day scientific meeting (November 9 and 10) included the following areas:

1. Public Administration
2. Economic Development
3. Digital Entrepreneurship and Technology
4. Management and Organizational Innovation
5. Women's Entrepreneurship

Attended by a large delegation of VCU and Moroccan and foreign doctoral students, this conference was marked by the presence of the Wali of the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Region; Governor of the Province of Oued Eddahab, Lamine; the President of the Regional Council, El Khattat; and the President of the University Ibn Zohr of Agadir, Abdelaziz; as well as an array of teachers from ENCG and the Superior School of Technology (EST).

“The legal clinic has made a great difference in my life, contributed to my growth, and made me what I am today, which I was not before the program.”

We have now known Hasnae for one year as a student at the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences and as a member of the Legal Clinic program. She is now 24 years old and in her first year as a PhD candidate researching human trafficking in the Moroccan Penal Code. After her completion of the program, we can testify to her distinguished, active participation, engagement, and integrity. Her distinguished commitment and contribution to the program have afforded her the respect of the Legal Clinic membership, professors, trainers as well as local, national and international partners.

As a student legal clinician, Hasnae has proved to be an active, engaged, and committed participant during a variety of socio-cultural, civic, and academic activities and events, such as trainings, seminars, conferences, study days, and beneficiary consultations, even as a trainer and member of organizing committees. During these activities, she has demonstrated quick and great evolution and improvement. She has demonstrated very good communication skills as well as beyond-expectation academic and personal qualities. This has been attested to by her maturity, sense of critical thinking, flexible attitude, and eagerness to get involved in learning experiences and activities in an independent way.

“The legal clinic has made a positive impact in both my personal and professional life. The program taught me more about myself, my competencies, and my studies and allowed me to put them into practice.” For Hasnae, the legal clinic student training she participated in as part of the program helped her improve the skills she had, acquire new ones, and become a better student, citizen, and human being.

Hasnae’s is an example of the positive impact the program has had. The training inspired her to select her research area and topic of her PhD thesis as human trafficking in the Moroccan penal code because this issue is one of the program’s concentrations.

Due to her excellent performance within the program, she was invited for a job interview at the European Council, which was successful. She began working for the Council as an expert in a project on the mechanisms of the orientation, advocacy, and protection of victims of human trafficking.

The skills she gained as a student clinician allowed her to participate in a study day organized by the Moroccan parliament on youth participation in politics and public policies. In the same context, she participated as a facilitator in the training offered by the legal clinic program to civil society associations in Sefrou and Oulad Tayeb on women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship.

According to Hasnae, youth are change agents and future leaders who will reinforce and maintain our national identity, diversity, and openness, and they will contribute to the sustainable development of our country. To this end, listening to youth voices and taking them into consideration would help us to take up the ever-changing challenges that define our present time and will continue to define the future. She believes that involving youth in decision-making and other civic activities, such as those successfully organized by the legal clinic, would certainly develop them as effective, responsible, and well-informed citizens.

“I would like to express my deepest thanks and the sincerest gratitude to all members of the Legal Clinic, to all professors and experts and partners who have made a difference in our lives, contributed to our change, and have made us what we are today,” remarks Hasnae. “The training, activities, and events in which we have been engaged, and, more importantly, the pedagogies used, offered us learning-by-doing experiences and allowed us opportunities to learn the values of teamwork, individual and group responsibility, endurance, competition, diversity, a sense of culture and community, and the values of mutual respect and tolerance.”

Hasnae continues to reflect, “Those activities offered us real and relevant opportunities to reinforce our coursework and to develop our academic and personal skills and apply them in a real-world context, which has enabled us to become lifelong and life-wide learners. Participation in the program has also increased our sense of engagement and belonging to the faculty and university.”