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.

Juillet 12 2011, Casablanca, Injaz Al Maghreb

Mardi le 12 juillet, nous avons rencontré Alexandre Giraud de Injaz Al Maghreb, une société crée en 2006 pour promouvoir l’entrepreneuriat. Injaz est membre de l’organisation < Junior Achievement> , leader mondial en matière de soutien à l’éducation. Injaz Al Maghreb ont cinq programmes qu’ils livrent dans les régions de Casablanca et Rabat. Le premier programme ressemble beaucoup au modèle Québécois des ‘Jeunes Entreprises du Québec ‘ : des élèves sont séparés en groupes et se partages des titres comme président, VP Marketing, VP Finance, etc. Ces élèves créent une entreprise et reçoivent de l’encadrement des cadres d’entreprises. Injaz a quatre autres initiatives : City Bank game, success skills, cours d’entrepreneuriat, business leaders. Leur objectif est de toucher 100,000 élèves en l’année 2015.

July 11 2011, Casablanca, Al Mostaqbal

Last Monday, we met Nacer Guertoumy, a Casablanca native that has lived in Quebec for ten years, who has founded a local NGO called Al Mostaqbal. This association has an interesting program called “Programme soutient aux élèves et d’aide aux devoirs” that provides students in the popular Sidi Belyout (Medina Bab Marrakesh) tutorial sessions after class. His program touches 2160 students out of 5000 in the region.  He tries to focus on quality education by limiting the number of students per class to 15. He also tries to stimulate the economy by hiring university graduates that are looking for employment.  Al Mostaqbal includes 150 ‘encadrants’ (teachers) that provide tutorial sessions to students. He has been able to get funds from I’INDH, city of Casablanca, ministry of education. He is always looking for funds because the more funds he gets, the more teachers he can afford to hire, and thus the more students benefit from the program.  EHE dHEfd He tries to involve the community by regularly holding public assemblies and involving parents, students, and school principles. He also believes that there are some needs in the educational system to involve more psychologists and sociologists. It was also clear from the discussion that there were differences in the needs of the rural area schools and those in the urban areas. In the urban areas, the difficulties included: difficult social context and poverty as well as exhausted educational resources. Mr. Guertoumy believes that the best input in the education system is investment in human capital and this is why his organization invests in lessons with motivated teachers. He also ensures that his program is complimentary to the services offered by the public education system that cater to the teacher and the infrastructure.

La générosité Marocaine !

Nous avons été agréablement surpris par la générosité des personnes responsables des projets en partenariat avec l'association PMM ainsi que leurs familles et amis qui nous accueillent généreusement à bras ouvert durant nos déplacement à leurs régions. 

Ces déplacements seront nécessaires pour comprendre la réalité du terrain marocain afin de mieux conseiller PMM quant au développement de ses activités futures et être en mesure de contribuer efficacement à l’amélioration de l’accès à l’éducation en milieu rural. Pour ce faire, nous aurons l'occasion de rencontrer les habitants des villages, parents et enfants, les directeurs et professeurs des écoles locales ainsi que les responsables des associations partenaires de PMM dans lesdites régions.

Nos remerciements à toutes les personnes responsables des organismes suivants ainsi qu'à leurs collaborateurs:

• Association Femmes Méditerranéennes pour le Développement: Villages ASLAAH, Ain LAHCEN et Bni WSSIM - Province TÉTOUAN
• Réseau des associations Iguidar: Village TAGHJIJT - Province GUELMIME
• Association Al Wahda Taksbite: Village TAKSBITE - Province CHTOUKA AIT BAHA
• Association Aït Souka: Village Aït SOUKA - Province MARRAKECH
• Groupe scolaire Guerouane: Village GUEROUANE - Province MIDELT

Nous tenons aussi à remercier les membres de l’association PMM, qui résident au Maroc ou qui y seront durant la période de notre projet, ainsi que nos familles et amis qui nous accueilleront à bras ouverts durant notre séjour et nous aideront avec le matériel nécessaire pour que notre projet soit une réussite... INCH'ALLAH !

Ali, pour l'Équipe Action Éducation
actioneducation.maroc@gmail.com

CASABLANCA J-21

Chers amis, l'équipe Action Éducation en est aux derniers préparatifs de sa mission... Nous avons tous très hâte d'être au Maroc et de représenter fièrement le MBA HEC Montréal au service de PMM ! Suivez-nous sur ce Blog et notre page Facebook, votre support est important pour nous !

Stay tuned on our blog !

Branding and Other Updates

Today we had our first conference call this month as part of the team (Mel, Ralph, Bachir) are doing an exchange in Lyon, while the others (Ali, Dana) are in Montreal. It was definitely fun to catch up and hear the news about life in the France. Here are some project updates

1. We have the MBA director as our professor! Professor Wybo has been extremely enthusiastic and helpful throughout this project and we are very excited to have him on board!
2. Finally, after months of brainstorming, we have finally come up with a project name we all like.
In French it is "Action Education"
In English, it is "Education Matters"
3. We are going to start finalizing the contacts with the local partners this week
4. The Lyon team are also going to dress a list of organizations of interest that we can contact
5. We are still looking for corporate sponsors

Please feel free to message us, we would love to hear from you!

La star Marocaine Basma Boussil chante l'enfant

Exams are here!

We`ve been a little bit busy these days with end of period exams and papers and this is why we haven’t blogged in a week. We are still finding some times to meet and coordinate for this project. We are preparing to approach companies that might be interested in financially supporting us in return for publicity on our blog and on our reports.

The good news is that we already have one diamond sponsor, our university, HEC Montreal. The MBA department has been excited and enthusiastic about this project and has extended its support to include an important financial contribution. We also have a silver sponsor, Agent Illustrateur, a company of an artistically gifted colleague of ours at the MBA program. Take a look at their pages! We feel really blessed by this support.

Would you know of any companies or individuals who would also be interested in gaining more visiblity while helping us? Can you help us spread the word? You can send us a private message at eduka@gmail.com  

Que du bonheur ! Can you feel the excitement in the air ?

Nous voilà après la fête! That was us at the end of the party.

Merci et Thank You

Notre collecte de fonds «MoRocking» qui a eu lieu Samedi dernier a été un énorme succès et nous voulons remercier tous ceux qui ont contribué.

Nous tenons à remercier le directeur du MBA de HEC Montréal, M. Michael Wybo, qui nous a rejoint avec son épouse. Nous sommes également heureux de recevoir le soutien de la coordinatrice des projets de consultation, Mme Élaine Lamontagne et la secrétaire administrative du programme de MBA, Mme Suzanne Lamoureux.

Un grand Merci également aux étudiants du MBA de HEC Montréal, à l'organisation PMM, ainsi qu'à nos amis et familles! Nous sommes vraiment touchés et ravis par votre soutien! Nous espérons que vous avez apprécié la musique, la nourriture, et la fête!

Par votre généreuse contribution, nous avons accumulé un bénéfice net de 825 $!

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Our fundraiser themed `MoRocking` that took place last Saturday was a huge success and we would like to thank everyone who contributed to it.

We would like to thank the MBA director, M. Michael Wybo, who along with his wife joined and encouraged us by making a special appearance. We`re really excited that he is as excited as we are on this project. We`re also excited to receive the support of the HEC Montréal consulting project coordinator, Mme Élaine Lamontagne and that of the administrative secretary of the MBA office, Mme Suzanne Lamoureux.

We`d also want to extend a special thanks the HEC Montréal MBA students, the PMM organization, as well as our friends and family who supported us by showing up and buying tickets! We are really delighted and thrilled by your support! We hope you enjoyed the music, the food, and the company!

Finally, last by not least, though your generous contributions, we accumulated a net profit of 825$!

Commentaires! | Comments!

I`m really impressed by the number of views of our website that has reached over 400 in only a few days of launching... What I would like to see from our viewers is some comments.... Please do take the time and comment on this post as we`d love to hear from you!

April 9 Party

The party April 9th is going well. We have about 60 attendees confirmed on Facebook and about about 40 tentative. This is quite encouraging and we're happy to see so much support from our fellow students!

Levée de fonds | Fundraising

We are all really excited about this project! We did go through a little bit of a downer last week when we were not accepted for a scholarship. We were counting on this 3000$ scholarship and were almost sure to get it! This means that effectively we need to raise at least 1,000 or 2,000 each to sustain our trip in Morocco this summer! This is if we live within a really really tight budget!

We will need to knock on extra doors! Yesterday, we had an entrepeneur come talk to us about his business... and he said that he recived venture capitalist money after 40 meetings!

What can we say. 1 down. 39 left to go. :)

Pour nous supporter en ligne! To support us online

Mesdames et messieurs - On a incorporé dans notre blog la fonction "Chip in" qui vous permettra d’effectuer vos dons à travers une transactions paypal super sécuritaire. On vous remercie pour votre générosité !
Ladies and Gentlemen - we are using a widget called ChipIn that works with Paypal and can take your online donations. It works and we have received our first donation of 25$! Thanks!

Pour Un Maroc Meilleur

Here is a excellent interview that gives you more information on Pour Un Maroc Meilleur, the NGO we are doing the mandate for

For complete information on Pour Un Maroc Meilleur, please visit their website:
http://www.pourunmarocmeilleur.com/

The issue we are tackling in Morocco described by Queen Rania and UNICEF

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so in order to enable you to read less, here is a video that explains the problem we will be tackling. As you can see, this problem is listed as a United Nations issue and has received the attention of some distinguished personalities.