Water School - Environmental Education in Morocco

There is a need for the Water School in Ait Baamrane. We, at Dar Si Hmad, plan to make the Water School a sustainable project with the rural children of the Ait Baamrane region. Our commitment and belief in the power of education, along with cooperation with our communities and the motivation of the participants, has made the pilot Water School program a success.

Having reflected as a team on our first Water School experience, we have drawn conclusions which we will implement for the next program. Our ultimate goal is to be creative with the concept and be more present in the field with the children at least twice a year instead of just once. More specifically, we aim to implement the Water School during the children’s school breaks, once in the month of April and once again in the month of June.

Our belief in education as a means of growth and prosperity led our team to brainstorm our next Water School plan for 2015. The children have no opportunities and spaces where they can learn by doing, develop their communication skills, meet new people and simply consider school to be a valuable resource for both formal and informal education. We consider the Water School to be a positive and engaging response to the needs of Ait Baamrane’s future generation.

In order to meet and satisfy the up-cited needs, we plan to grow next year in parallel with the children’s intellectual growth. The following are some collective ideas that will help guide us for the next Water School:

• Increase the amount of field trips because it gets the children out of the school space and into a different sphere. These trips help the students acquire learning that is not restricted to neither a specific space nor a specific time;
• Conduct more scientific experiments and workshops by professional scientists;
• Include more art workshops since we all observed and agreed that the children are diversely talented in numerous artistic areas such as theater, painting and gardening. Our goal is to ignite and foster these talents by conducting workshops that can encourage them to explore various forms of self-expression. Thus, students can evolve from being a mere pupil to an agent of change in their community.

We visualize our future Water Schools to offer a combination of science, arts and hands-on activities as a way to inspire the children of Ait Baamrane, ultimately encouraging them to evolve and proposer individually and collectively. We are grateful for all the amazing support from our generous donors, board members and fellow community members in making this pilot Water School a memorable experience.

Links:

• http://www.darsihmad.org
• http://darsihmadorg.blogspot.com/

Dar Si Hmad has successfully completed its first edition of its Water School in the region of Ait Baamran, Southwest Morocco. The 7-13 aged rural kids participated in a series of workshops revolving around the topic of water, the environment and technology from June 5 till June 26.

From the 46 children who have assiduously participated in the pilot project, we’d like to tell the story of one child, only one child.  His name is Masinissa, he is 6 years old, and unlike all his peers, Masinissa has a motor-skill problem (notably one atrophied hand and leg) limiting, thus, his physical mobility, but especially impacting negatively on his social life.  Everyone treated Masinissa as an impotent, incapacitated child; because of concerns of him tripping, falling, hurting himself… he was barred from games and sat, sadly, alone and frustrated  in a corner. Even within the regular school-year or when at home, everything was brought to Masinissa and everyone talked about him as though he was unable to comprehend, mistaking his physical impairment for imbecility.  His family insisted he participates, and how happy are we they did!  Despite remontrances of the teacher and his classmates, our team insisted he plays (though we paid attention to him not be roughed up), our team included him in each and every activity, and our team insisted that he speaks up and voices up his experience.  Just like a shy flower blooming little by little, Masinissa ran in a staggered way, held his cup alone even when he was able to bring to the table only half of its liquid, and participated in each and every activity eagerly.  Masinissa revealed himself to be extremely smart, started conversing with us and had insights about water-use that his peers did not have.  Perhaps his marginalized position of an observer gave him an advantage that the others, way involved in fetching water, did not see.  He often suggested that the buckets brought to the well, should not be filled because the water gets wasted. When we had our sea-side trip, Masinissa was bubbling with life and happiness, his frustration having totally been dissipated and is now enjoying being the child he is;  thank you for participating in making this happen.  

Links:

• Our blog post about the Water School Project