Education Morocco Project #6480

Field Train Students, CSOs & Officials in Morocco

by High Atlas Foundation

Project Report | Aug 26, 2014
CSO leaders and activists are taking action!

By Caroline Hoffmann | HAF Intern

This past quarter, the HAF team invested significant effort and resources to train and provide guidance to 188 CSO activists and University students to design, plan and implement programs and activities that promote civic engagement among youth and women.

Three particular topical areas were targeted:

1- Assisting CSO leaders and activists to initiate income-generating projects aiming at improving the socio-economic status of youth and women and in the process impact their levels of civic participation. Among the beneficiaries were women and youth who are less educated, unemployed, and from rural communes, who are least civically engaged and whose voices are underrepresented in public debates and decisions.

2- Improving access to local CSOs to encourage youth and women to join and be civically engaged - through good governance, better communication and transparency within CSO structures.

3- Improving civic and political knowledge of targeted citizens.

The results showed that CSO leaders and activists are taking the lead in planning and implementing programs targeting new community groups. CSOs from five communities of Mohammedia were able to secure funding and technical assistance to implement projects included in their community development action plans.

In the commune of Beni Yekhlef, 40 CSOs activists contributed to the planning and implementation of the spring festival. The weeklong festival included capacity building sessions, art, music, environmental education and awareness activities, community cleanup and tree planting.
In the commune of Ain Harrouda a CSO was able to secure funding to start a women’s cooperative for house cleaning services. The cooperative currently employs 15 women and two men.
Three CSOs from the same commune were able to secure funding to install a sewage system in two neighborhoods. The construction work is underway and will benefit 120 families in the near future.
The coalition of CSOs in Mohammedia was able to secure funding to organize and recruit youth for the summer youth camps program, which targeted 2500 youth from marginalized communities.
To celebrate Earth Day, two environmental education and awareness campaigns were implemented by CSO activists. The programs involved 180 students of local elementary schools who were able to plant 90 trees within the compound of their schools.
In the commune of Ain Harrouda, 15 activists from local CSOs organized workshops for 350 high school students on role and responsibilities of Moroccan citizens, with the aim to prepare young people for their roles as active citizens in society. The young students were able to voice their opinions about several social issues.

In this quarter, 156 activists, students and community leaders took several initiatives to influence local decision makers on a number of social issues.

48 CSOs have been actively involved in advocacy efforts to influence the decisions of policy makers in the areas of urban planning, improving conditions for workers in the informal sector, improving public health and services provided by the local hospitals, integrated services and care for children with Down syndrome.
30 CSOs activists in the commune of Ain Harrouda have joined efforts to work on the issue of corporate social responsibility and changing the behavior of business and local Government. They want these actors to work together and take responsibility in making the environment conducive for corporate social responsibility. The activists organized a conference attended by 96 participants representing different sectors and contributed to developing a petition on the subject with 2000 signatures.
Activists and community leaders from 48 CSOs participated to a conference organized by HAF, during which, participants from the public, private and non-profit sectors had a great opportunity to share and discuss innovative models and partnerships that promote mutual benefits. As a result, 11 CSO-government partnerships were created to address key identified social and economic challenges, including lack of vocational training for women and girls, sanitation and youth development.
12 CSOs from the communes of Mohammedia, Ain Harrouda and Beni Yekhlef have joined efforts to develop a strategy to advocate for improved policy and governance, investment promotion and marketing and networking to improve flows of information to enhance opportunities in the city of Mohammedia. Activists from these CSOs held meetings with private investors and government representatives to review challenges and opportunities to improving the local business environment. As a result, the CSOs representatives were invited to join a provincial committee to research new mechanisms to increase CSOs involvement in the provision and maintenance of infrastructure and ways it could boost local economies, particularly the initiative for targeting the poor.
As the communal elections are officially announced for the summer of 2015, elected officials and CSO activists from the communes of Mohammedia, Ain Harrouda and Beni Yekhlef held a series of consultancy meetings with citizens. The meetings process was a real opportunity for 275 citizens to voice their concerns and opinion and engage in different debates on topics related to governance and transparency.
Activists from 13 CSOs representing citizens with disabilities reviewed a newly issued policy by the government related to protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and decided to join the national coalition for the advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities (135 CSOs) in their efforts to bloc this policy at the parliament, including participating in a peaceful demonstration by the parliament building.

The program’s results show many concrete examples demonstrating the commitment and the improvement in civic participation of the trained community members. New CSOs are progressively created and community members are more and more engaged in associations, in the past quarter 73 new members have joined existing organizations and six new CSOs involving 70 citizens were created.

These examples show the program’s positive impact and encourage High Atlas Foundation with support from its partners and donors to continue and multiply efforts in training, assisting and supporting community members in Mohammedia.

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May 28, 2014
Improving civic engagement via capacity building

By Safae Lacheheb | Program Assistant

The past quarter was impressively productive, as the project team successfully completed a total of 12 capacity building workshops, round table discussions and meetings involving 345 target citizens, CSO activists, and students from the different communes of Mohammedia.

These different meetings constituted opportunities to the targeted beneficiaries to learn about public issues and acquire skills, knowledge and practical experience of relevance to the role of functioning as a citizen. Therefore, significant improvement was noticed in the level of civic engagement, among target citizens, through their active participation in community meetings, community council monthly meetings, and the design and implementation of community initiatives and projects.

Using knowledge and skills gained through the capacity building workshops provided by HAF, CSO leaders continued to use different ways to identify and recruit stakeholders to participate in the planning and implementation of community development initiatives. 13 CSO-government partnerships were created to address key social and economic issues, including a project to integrate children with Down syndrome into the education system. As a result, a specific curriculum was developed in two public elementary schools to the benefit of 45 children. A third class will be opened in school year 2014-2015, which will be dedicated to professional training for a group of 12 teenagers with Down syndrome. The program will also include different activities and performances by these children to educate the public and officials about the needs of children and teenagers with Down syndrome.

Another funded project planned and implemented by CSOs from the rural communes of Beni Yekhlef and Sidi Moussa Ben Ali have been completed in partnership with the local department of agriculture. The project received funding and in-kind donations to train poor farmers in modem agriculture practices. 250 farmers benefited from capacity building workshops in the area of drip irrigation, converting to new crops with added value and the value of cooperatives.

The coalition of CSOs in the commune of Beni Yekhlef, reported a newly signed agreement with the local delegation of the Ministry of Public health and the local hospital. With the goal to create a mobile medical unit for poor and isolated communities, this partnership will benefit over 5000 people.

CSO leaders from the commune of Ain Harrouda reported three partnerships with the National Initiative of Human Development and were able to secure funding to help address the challenges faced by workers in the informal sector. 80 beneficiaries are currently actively participating in a capacity building program aiming at helping the workers adapt basic small business management techniques.

On the other hand, CSOs activists participated to different meetings with the local political officials as unique opportunities to influence the decision making process. In the commune of Ain Harrouda, 85 Citizens participated in a meeting with a group of 10 elected officials. The meeting aimed at reviewing and assessing the five years communal development plan and was a great opportunity for participating citizens to voice their ideas and concerns and to suggest ways to address pressing economic and social challenges. 75 citizens participated in round table discussions with public officials to develop a vision of an “ideal” city as an ambitious project to create a new city called Znata. Several challenges related to economic and social impacts of this new city were identified from this process.

35 CSO activists played a leading role in the review process of urban plans and distribution of social housing to poor families in the city of Mohammedia. The advocacy efforts of the CSOs and community citizens are showing tangible results, reflected by the ongoing participation to regular meetings with the city planners and local authorities to develop solutions to issues associated with dismantling shantytowns in the city of Mohammedia and providing subsidized housing to poor families.

As for our trained students, 27 students demonstrated improvement in their advocacy capacity. These students, who have worked on creating Student Advocate Body as a resource that provides academic support and advocacy for students at the Faculty of Juridical, economic and social Sciences in Mohammedia, has been working with International students from Sub-Saharan countries and the University administrators to improve conditions for better integrations of international students.

Thanks to the generous support of our donors to the program, our trainees are developing their skills day after day, are successfully implementing development actions and initiatives, and multiplying the impacts of the development programs for the local communities. Thank you for helping to the creation of brighter futures for the communities of Mohammedia.

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Feb 26, 2014
Updates from the Training Center

By Aicha Galef | Program Manager

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