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“imagine” women’s empowerment four-day workshop at cadi ayyad university (with uca and uva women students)
HAF Intern This week was all about women empowerment, we had a women’s workshop for four days and it was my first time to experience it. I did not know what to expect and how it will turn out… The workshop was led by HAF empowerment trainers – Amina El Hajjami, Fatima Zahra Laaribi and […]
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My Development, Without Limits
HAF Intern, UVA student SCATTERED. For the past week, I’ve been trying to put into words, or just one word, what the four-day women’s empowerment workshop meant to me and I feel scattered just trying. All at once, the workshop was challenging, easy, meditative, analytical, goal-oriented, present-focused, relaxing, irritating, draining, and energizing. I’ve written down […]
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Hidden Gems: The Meaning of Cooperatives on July 6th
– The Hidden Gems of Morocco, The Daily Angle, By Sarita Mehta (HAF Intern), 19 July 2019. • Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 11 July 2019. How cooperatives may be a key factor in social and economic empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa To many people, this coming July 6 marks the passing of another Saturday. But to over 1 […]
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Anamer Women‘s Hearts Are Filled with Hope
SANAE BENAADIM HAF VOLUNTEER On the 15th of June, the team left HAF office in Marrakech in the morning toward Anamer village in Seti Fadma commune which is about 55 km out of the Red city. The team included Said El Bennani, HAF’s Project Manager, and Hassan Ait Ouatouch, HAF’s Project Assistant, Ilyas Dkhrissi (social […]
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Moving to the Market: The Future of Setti Fatma
By Touda Bazaz HAF Volunteer On the 15th of June 2019, a group of volunteers and I left the High Atlas Foundation office in Marrakech at 09:00 am to Setti Fatma commune direction in order to participate in some of the activities that the foundation does. Along for the ride was a group of American […]
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Haf’s Commitment to Girls’ Education in Morocco
by Nisreen Abo-Sido HAF Volunteer, Thomas J. Watson Fellow In Morocco, just 26% of girls–in contrast to 79% of boys–residing in rural areas are enrolled in primary school. Furthermore, rates of school dropout–particularly between primary and secondary school–are 15% higher for rural girls than for boys, and three times higher for rural girls compared to […]
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Ramadan for Environment and Women’s Empowerment in Tassa Ouirgane
By Elouahsoussi Rachid HAF intern On Wednesday the 14th of May, members of the High Atlas Foundation’s team visited Tassa Ouirgane to conduct a women’s empowerment meeting and pay a visit to the foundation’s nursery there. The team consisted of Amina El Hajjami, HAF’s Director of Projects, and Hassan Ait Ouatouch, HAF’s Project Assistant, as […]
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Women’s Impressions on the Last Day of an Empowerment Workshop
By Houria CHOUHAB HAF volunteer One of my favorite activities to attend with HAF facilitators is women’s empowerment workshops. You can notice the difference between the first day and the last day in their behaviors, voices tones, body language, and the sparkle of their eyes. On last Saturday, April 27th, I joined Empowerment Trainer, Ibtissam […]
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We Are in Aboghlou Cooperative!
By Sanae Benaadim HAF Volunteer One month of my volunteer experience at the High Atlas Foundation has already passed! I had my second chance to accompany Amina El Hajjami, Director of Projects, to facilitate a workshop for 29 women of the Aboghlou Cooperative. This two-day workshop took place in the Ourika Valley, which is 30 […]
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Rural Women Achieve Their Self-Empowerment in Taalanit Village
By Sanae Benaadim HAF Volunteer On April 4th, HAF and local Moroccan women embarked on a new, exciting adventure! HAF’s team, including Fatima Zahra Laaribi, Amina El Hajjami, Houria Chouhab, Martine Roberts, and myself, went to Taalanit, a small village located in the Setti Fadma commune of the Al Haouz Province. As we approached the […]
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It Rains Empowerment in Talaint
By Houria CHOUHAB HAF Volunteer On the 4th of April, a team from HAF conducted a four days workshop in Talaint, in the Setti Fatma Commune. It was raining so heavily that we thought women would not attend the workshop, but they proved us wrong when half of the women were already there and the […]
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Helping to Build a Vision for a Better Future
Written by Fatima Zahra Laaribi Financial Manager | Lead Empowerment Trainer To maintain a successful scaling strategy for empowering Moroccan women on a national level, HAF invests in its staff to build their capacities and to expand the organization’s number of facilitators. After the completion of her “observation phase” as an empowerment facilitator apprentice, HAF’s […]
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Sois L’ami De L’environnement !
Clarisse ESPIL stagiaire à « High atlas Foundation » Ce mardi 9 avril 2019, la HAF s’est rendue à Tassa Ouirgane, une commune qui se situe dans les montagnes de l’Atlas à 90 kilomètres de Marrakech afin d’y réaliser une activité sous le thème de l’environnement. Le but de cette visite en partenariat avec le Programme […]
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Songs, Smiles, and Other Things to Say Goodbye
Fatima Zahra LAHRIRE HAF Volunteer Today is the third day of the training. We can associate not only the faces with the names but also the faces with the voices. We develop the habit of meeting them first thing in the morning before the workshop and the last thing before we sleep. We had our […]
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The Journey of Agerzrane’s Local Population to Greater Light
Fatima Zahra LAHRIRE HAF Volunteer We started our day with a traditional breakfast prepared by the family hosting us. We could hear the voices of the girls coming from early morning to participate in the workshop. They have power and it is quite profound. A power that allowed them to survive all the difficulties the […]
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The Stones of Agerzrane Village Succeed to Break the Silence (Part 1 of 3)
Fatima Zahra LAHRIRE HAF Volunteer We are now in the Tifnoute Valley of the High Atlas Mountains after a long journey. It was a cold morning, and the snowy mountains reminded of the stormy night of yesterday. It was a crisp and cloudy but the radiant smile upon the faces of the people who came […]
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Women Between the past and the Present in Akrich Region
Houria Chouhab HAF Volunteer On Women’s International Day, the High Atlas Foundation visited the Association Assalam for Development in Douar Achbarou. This village is located in the Rural Commune of Tameslouht, which is only 20 kms away from Marrakech. Beforehand, the activities in this association were run by men only, but since last October, women […]
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International Women’s Day-a Call for a Gender-Balanced World
Today on March 8 is International Women’s Day! This day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. International Women’s Day (IWD) has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911 supported […]
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Meeting the Women from the Aboghlou Cooperative in Ourika
by Celina Böhmer HAF intern The weather is getting warmer here in Morocco. The sun is shining the whole day and providing us warmth. Yesterday, HAF project director Amina El Hajjami and I went to visit the Aboghlou Cooperative in Ourika. HAF began working with the women in 2015/16, using a participatory approach and training […]
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The Compounding Benefits of Women’s Empowerment
by Fatima Zahra Laaribi Women’s Empowerment Lead Trainer High Atlas Foundation From February 2016 to the present, 467 women participated in the four-day empowerment workshop conducted by High Atlas Foundation. HAF has achieved this in partnership with the Empowerment Institute, Middle East Partnership Initiative, National Endowment for Democracy, Intrepid Foundation, FRE Skincare and other groups […]
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The Moroccan Schools as Bridge to the Communities
The beauty of Morocco exists not only in the big cities but also in the charming villages of the countryside. Many villages and residential communities are scattered along the Atlas Mountain range, from the south-west of the country to the far east, and the activities vary from one region to the other. Nevertheless, they share […]
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Cooperative Development – It Takes a Village
Case study of the Aboghlou Womens Coopertaive, Ourika It is a sunny Thursday afternoon as Amina El Hajjami, Projects Director at the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), and I drive out of Marrakech towards Ourika in Al Haouz Province, just one hour away. We are visiting the Aboghlou Women’s Cooperative in a small shopfront where 32 […]
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Rural and Urban Economic Development Through Women’s Empowerment
By Eliana Lisuzzo HAF Project Assistant The High Atlas Foundation (HAF)—headed by a distinguished Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and operational team of both Moroccans and Americans—is a U.S. and Moroccan 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that was created by former Peace Corps Volunteers in 2000. HAF facilitates and builds people’s capacities in participatory democratic approaches to […]
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HAF and MEPI in the Oujda Region with Its Cooperatives
The High Atlas Foundation (HAF) has worked in the Oujda Region for three years. HAF’s Marrakech and Oujda teams came together in August to facilitate women’s empowerment and cooperative development workshops and are touring the region, now joined by our counterparts from The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). Since September 5th, we have met with cooperative members from four provinces, with two […]
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The Journey of Empowerment in the Oriental Region
Ibtissam Niri Office Manager Today was the last day of Imagine workshops in Oujda, but the first day to think about the journey of Empowerment in the Oriental region for 58 women of different cooperatives. From August 10st to August 17th, 2018, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) facilitated an eight-day women’s empowerment workshop in Isly Golf […]
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FRÉ and the Imagine Empowerment Workshop
by Tal Carmel In January 2018, FRÉ’s founders and a couple ambassadors had the opportunity to plant Argan trees in Morocco. During the trip, they visited with the women who harvest the Argan seeds at the Izourane co-op in Tidzi, Essaouira. It was from this visit that FRÉ’s founders decided they wanted to do more […]
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Marketing for Cooperatives: From Lifesavers to Pike’s Place
By Katherine O’Neil Claremont McKenna College (USA), HAF Intern On Friday, July 13, I visited the Tifaouine Women’s Cooperative in Amizmiz, Morocco with High Atlas Foundation (HAF) Coordinator Errachid Montassir and Land O’Lakes expert volunteer Lynda Drennan Swenson. The purpose of this visit was to provide a brief training seminar on marketing and financial management […]
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Why Education Isn’t the Only Solution: An Overview of Female Employment in Morocco and the Region
– Why Education Isn’t the Only Solution: An Overview of Female Employment in Morocco and the Region, Global Research, by Katherine O’Neill (Undergraduate student and HAF Intern), 24 July 2018. • Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 6 August 2018 The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has the lowest female employment rate of anywhere in the world. Though most countries […]
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Blog of Ali Ait Oubkhane, Mohammedia Intern (Text in Arabic)
By Ali Ait Oubkhane July 27, 2015 This blog post details Intern Ali Ait Oubkhane’s appreciation for the opportunity to work with HAF and assist both peer students and CSOs through the legal aid program. تقييم تجربة التدريب في مؤسسة الأطلس الكبير للمتدرب علي ايت اوبخان لا اجد الكلمات لأعبر على السعادة التي كنت اشعر […]
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Blog of Hajar Mouhajir, Mohammedia Intern (Text in Arabic)
By Hajar Mouhajir July 31, 2015 This blog post in Arabic details Intern Hajar Mouhajir’s work with HAF assisting peer students and CSOs through the legal aid program. تقييم تجربة التدريب في مؤسسة الأطلس الكبير للمتدربة هاجر مهاجر تشرفت بتجربتي في مؤسسة الاطلس الكبير حيث كانت تجربة شيقة مليئة بالاحماس والرغبة في مساعدة الاخرين مما […]