Presentation Update

Last Monday, we presented our project to our client, Pour Un Maroc Meilleur (PMM), and to our professor, Mr. Michael Wybo. We were extremely happy to see a large attendance of executive and active PMM members.  The presentation went extremely well and the client, the professor, and the students were happy and grateful for having worked together on a project that could change the destiny of others!

The lessons we learnt revolve around the area of sustainable and durable aid. Our recommendations were admired and we look forward to seeing PMM grow and flourish.

Working Hard!

We've been in the Macsteel office in Casablanca working hard on analysing our findings and proposing solutions for PMM. We’ve had some amazing discussions and discoveries throughout the process.

Do any of you have any specific questions you would like to throw at us at this stage?

Les Produits Zinda inc. nouveau commanditaire du projet "Action Éducation"

Nous venons d'apprendre que Les Produits Zinda, http://zindaproducts.com/, nous offre une commandite de 1,000 CAD pour Le projet Action Éducation Maroc. Les Produits Zinda rejoint notre liste de commanditaires: HEC Montréal, MacSteel, Ste-TraGi, BTP Itech, Agent Illustrateur ainsi que les donateurs individuels sans lesquels ce projet n'aurait pas pu voir le jour. Au nom de la bonne cause, merci à tous pour votre confiance et votre engagement social.

Rencontre avec l'association Iguidar- village de Taghjijt

Samedi 16 Juillet: l’équipe Action Éducation a pris la route, direction : le pays Amazigh et l’Anti- Atlas !

Durant le trajet, La beauté des paysages et la générosité des gens du sud ont bien accompagné les membres de l’équipe qui avait comme principal objectif une rencontre avec le partenaire locale du village Taghjijt (province de Guelmim) , l’association Iguidar.

Le village de Taghjijt, ou « la Porte du Sahara» est une splendide oasis de l’Anti-Atlas caractérisée par ses beaux palmiers et ses trente variétés de dattes.

Autour d’un bon verre de thé à la menthe, la réunion s’est avérée très fructueuse. L’équipe a discuté avec le président de l’association M. Said Ezzaoui ainsi qu’avec les membres de l’exécutif, des moyens et des outils qui seront utiles pour renforcer le partenariat entre PMM et Iguidar. Cette rencontre a dressé un bilan des besoins fondamentaux pour assurer un bon suivi et contrôle des activités humanitaires qui seront lancées par PMM dans le futur.

L’après midi, l’équipe Action Éducation s’est retrouvé au « Centre de la culture » du village (Dar el Saqafa) avec la majorité des partis prenantes et des présidents des associations locales pour en récolter des informations sur les besoins du village et des environs en matière d’éducation et de développement humain.

L’équipe « Action Éducation », au nom de PMM, remercie tous les intervenants de Taghjijt pour leur support, temps et énergie.

Prochaine Arrêt, village Taksbit (Province Chtouka Ait Baha) ! Restez à l'écoute !

Meeting with Mr. Benmokhtar, previous minister of education in Morocco who currently manages the ONDH

Last Thursday, we met Mr. Benmokhtar Benabdallah, previous minister of education in Morocco who currently manages the ONDH “Office national du development human”. He is an impressive and memorable character that has extensive in-depth knowledge about the realities on the ground and efforts of change. The meeting was rich in content and we were able to extract many sustainable concepts.  The most important philosophy we take away from Mr. Benmokhtar Benabdallah is that any help any association makes would be more valuable if it was qualitative rather than quantitative. We talked about how helping a limited number of students – but fully – might be more beneficial that providing very partial help to an extensive number of students.  The very little support can evaporate within days and would not guarantee an education. The extended support to a limited number of individuals must be continuous enough to have an impact that is irreversible.

If you had to provide extensive end to end help to thirty students or very partial aid to a thousand students – what would you do? 

Interview with USAID

The interviews we had last Thursday were enlightening on many fronts. During the interview with USAID, we understood one of the reasons illiteracy is so high in Morocco. Other than the usual reasons students choose to drop from school (high levels poverty that don’t always allow parents to purchase school supplies and uniforms, distance from schools that discourage students from attending school, unmotivated professors that make class painful, and the presence of a mentality that sometimes does not value education), there is also the phenomenon that children learn to read and write and forget what they learned because they don’t use it often. We can totally relate to this phenomenon as any language unpracticed is easily forgotten. In the midst of rural areas, shops are dozens of kilometers away, and the written language is perhaps hundreds of kilometers away (outside the school). For people living in rural areas, taking care of cattle and agriculture are of upmost. These people need to work the land in a continuous manner for survival and cannot afford to take a break and this is why the opportunity cost of sending a student to school is high. USAID have identified that teaching is the area they focus on and together with the ministry of education and a lot of joint work examining systems from various countries, they come up with new and adapted teaching methodologies for Morocco. In collaboration with the government, they offer professors teaching modules that make teachers more effective at transferring knowledge to their students. 

Samedi 10 juillet 2011, Tetouan: Asmaa Ennebet - Association des Femmes Méditerranéennes pour le Développement

July 7^th was a big day as we all met in Casablanca. Ali, who arrived before us, picked us up from the airport in batches: Mel and Dana arrived in the morning, while Ralph and Bachir arrived in the evening. Enthusiasm, as always, was high and we are all happy to be here and work on this project.

Soon after, we took the road to the north of Morocco where we met with PMM’s partner, Association des Femmes Méditerranéennes pour le Development (AFMD). Our hosts were wonderfully kind and equally enthusiastic to meet us. They showed us three of the four schools they service in the Tetouan rural area: Azlah, Ain Lahcen, and Bni Wssim. At every school, we met professors and school directors. We also met students, parents, director of the parents’ association. These visits enabled us to understand the challenges the students face: poverty that makes buying school supplies and clothing difficult for parents, parent’s mentality that does not always value education, difficult unpaved roads and distance from school that make transportation difficult.