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Morocco Week in Review 
April 12 , 2014

Operation Smile* is sending a surgical humanitarian team to Marrakesh April 18-27 to lead surgical operations at El Antaki hospital for children suffering from facial deformities. We’re sending posters to PCVs in the region, to put up in public places. You might want to start spreading the word out, identifying cases and informing their parents about the free operation. If you’re in the area and need posters, please let us know.

Here are the phone numbers for more information: 06 61 42 79 35, or  06 61 43 79 20 and 05 27 55 08 31 * http://www.operationsmile.ma

Operation Smile Morocco ajbara@operationsmile.org  or opsmile@enara.ma  Msn: arode100@hotmail.com
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Kerry’s remarks at the Swearing-in : Full text:

http://moroccoonthemove.com/2014/04/06/kerry-peace-corps-swearing-ceremony-morocco-every-one-ambassador/#sthash.fo5iHdLt.dpbs

http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2014/04/20140404297442.html#axzz2yJmuTiqJ

Dominic McNear’s Photo: http://imgur.com/ugwABBA

few more Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/13622423035/in/photostream/

http://joeldowlingphotography.com/2014/04/06/peacecorps/
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Are Moroccan Youth Happy?
Saturday 5 April 2014
Rabat

Moroccan youth have been ranked 20th in the Global Youth Well-being Index, released on Friday by the International Youth Foundation and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The study, which included 30 countries representing nearly 70% of the world’s youth population aged 10-24, has ranked Morocco in the 20th place, ahead of Ghana, the Philippines and South Africa.

The index uses a set of 40 indicators that address the overall national environment, youth-specific outcomes, and youths’ outlook and satisfaction levels across six interconnected aspects of their lives (domains): citizen participation, economic opportunity, education, health, information and communications technology, and safety and security.

According to the Global Youth Well-being Index, “Of the four countries in the Middle East-North Africa region, Morocco is third.”

Among the eight countries in the lower-middle income bracket, Morocco sits third behind Vietnam and Indonesia.

In Morocco, where young people represent 28% of the total population, the average domain scores indicate youth are more optimistic in citizen participation (19), health (13) and safety and security (11), while they are less optimistic in education (27) and economic opportunities (26).

Despite doing relatively well in three out of the six domains, the study says Morocco achieves bottom tier rankings in the three remaining domains.
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Travel students make a difference in Morocco.
By Canterbury Times  

CHILDREN at a school in Morocco have had their lives enhanced thanks to donations by 28 students at Canterbury College. Equipment and toys, including books, pens, rounders equipment, kites, yo-yos and a laptop, were donated to the Erg Chebbi school in south-east Morocco, by the travel and tourism students. Many of the items were given out in person, during a week-long visit to the region by the students, who spoke afterwards about meeting some of the children their donations would help.

"Some of the pupils have to travel miles to get to school because it's in the middle of nowhere," said Hollie Marsh, 17: "It was very rewarding and humbling – they didn't know what a rounders bat was and we showed them how to use it. It put what we take for granted into perspective."

Lewis Fellows, 18, added: "Even though there was a language barrier, when we started playing sports everyone got involved at once. It's satisfying to know you've made a difference to someone's life."

During the trip, the students acted as holiday reps, giving speeches, doing health and safety checks and organising entertainment. They also had time to visit the market at Marrakesh, and ride camels through the desert.

Read more: http://www.canterburytimes.co.uk/Travel-students-make-difference-Morocco/story-20941342-detail/story.html#ixzz2yZwYmrxV
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Morocco school repair drive set to change pupils’ lives.
Janice Ponce de Leon, Staff Reporter  April 11, 2014 Dubai

Team Yallah Dubai will participate in Cap Femina Aventure to help refurbish a school.

Rainwater leaks through the roof. The walls have holes. Out of four classrooms, two need repairs, forcing 100 students to alternately use the remaining two rooms. This is where primary students ages three to 12 study in the Tafilalet region of northern Morocco.

And this is where two Dubai residents, Mathilde Rottembourg and Carinne Abou-Huguet, are heading as Team Yallah Dubai this October for the Cap Femina Aventure charity rally. The rally will see all-women teams pound Moroccan dunes on four-wheelers en route to an educational centre that needs refurbishing and repainting.

Gulf News spoke to non-profit international organisation, Coeur de Gazelles, the main organiser of the Cap Femina Aventure, on the secret school destination of the rally by women for women this 2014.

Jerome Zindy, a representative of the group, said the beneficiary school was chosen based on the urgent needs of the school. “Two of the four classrooms cannot be used because the roof has leaks and they don’t have proper walls. Some 100 children have to share the two remaining rooms. Classes are done in rotation,” Zindy told Gulf News in a phone interview from France. The poor condition of schools, Zindy said, is common in most public schools in the rural areas of Morocco.

According to a paper titled The Morocco Country Case Study by the Global Health Workforce Alliance, poverty and social inequalities have always been a constant challenge in Morocco, with national poverty rates pegged at 9.0 per cent. Illiteracy rate is estimated to be 43 per cent, according to the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation.

In 2012, Cap Femina Aventure repainted and refurbished the school of Merzouga that benefitted 300 primary children. After a year, they went to a Hassilabiad school that caters to 200 children. “The schools don’t look like the schools we’re familiar with in France. Theirs are very basic buildings and the school environment is not good for children,” Zindy said.

For the chosen school this year, organisers will get all the technical repairs done before the rally drivers arrive in the school for the repainting and refurbishing.

The group will also plant trees and grass to provide a respite to students in the sweltering heat of Morocco during the summer months. “The school playground does not have shaded green areas. There are no trees; and to think temperatures could reach as high as 50 Celsius during summer,” Zindy said. “They don’t have air-conditioning nor electric fans, just windows.”

The group will also install computers and sports equipment that the children can use in the long run. They will work together with local associations to ensure that the distribution of donated goods is done in a fair and sustainable way.

But Zindy said they only pick to help a school if the community is willing to help. They have to own the project, he said. “When we work on a project, we want the local population to be involved. We’d like them to work with us and to show that they want to make that change in the community,” Zindy said.

“We have seen positive returns from the communities we’ve touched over the past two years. The team spirit has improved. Children are proud of their new school and they feel that they are part of it.” http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/morocco-school-repair-drive-set-to-change-pupils-lives-1.1317998
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After French, Morocco to Introduce Spanish Baccalaureate
Friday 11 April 2014
Fez

The Ministry of Education will soon introduce a “Spanish option” to the international Moroccan high school diploma beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, according to Moroccan news website Alyaoum24.

The decision came after a meeting on Moroccan- Spanish cooperation in education held last week in Rabat between the Moroccan Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Mr. Rachid Belmokhtar, and the Spanish Ambassador to Morocco, Mr. Jose de Carvajal.

The new program is intended to “foster the ministry’s policy seeking to diversify high school diplomas by integrating all foreign languages adopted in the Moroccan education programs,” said the Ministry in a press release carried by MAP, the state news agency.

The new baccalaureate will be first adopted in Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Tangier, Tetouan, Larache, and Nador, where the Spanish cultural center “Cervantes” has a presence, and will gradually be extended to other cities. Currently, about ten percent of students chose Spanish as their second language.

The Education Ministers of the two countries are set to meet in May in Madrid, where they are expected to agree on details on how to implement this agreement. Additionally, the Moroccan Education Ministry is working on launching an international Moroccan high school diploma “English option,” as a part of the Ministry’s policy to reform the national education system.

According to the same source, Education professionals criticize the ministry for adopting a similar plan of action as used for the French language, calling for a new strategy to boost the presence of English in Moroccan schools.

Moroccan Minister of Higher Education Lahcen Daoudi declared in an interview with Alyaoum 24 last month that the Ministry’s policy of continuing with the French baccalaureate is “a dubious solution” to Morocco’s ailing education system, explaining that “French is no longer useful.”
Edited by Melissa Smyth
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/04/128165/education-after-french-morocco-to-introduce-spanish-baccalaureate/
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Morocco: When Teens Take action.
Thursday 10 April 2014
Izza Fartmis Safi, Morocco

Give teens leadership and see how well they manage it.

Nothing warms the heart and revives our hope and expectations more than action take by teenagers, especially when actions are completed in the name of solidarity. When I proposed a visit to the Elderly Hostel to my students, all of them were eager to participate in a charitable action.

As I was not able to take the entire class, I was obliged to decide who would actually have the chance to go on the field trip. The rest of the class would have to settle for a promise to accompany me to the hostel on another day. I then let my students take the responsibility of deciding and delegating tasks: who would collect the contributions and what was appropriate to prepare and buy for the elderly people living in the hostel.

My contribution went first, not as a leader, but only as a participant. In this situation, leadership was a joint responsibility as each of my students had something to say and to do for this project. Although the idea of the visit was not planned beforehand, the visit, luckily, went well. The hostel was a bit far from the students’ homes and we didn’t have enough time to ask the authorities for a means of transport. But the youth of my class decided to go beyond any obstacles that might confront them. I only fixed the time of our meeting in front of the hostel and withdrew myself to let them organize everything else about our visit.

I was the first to arrive, a bit before 3:00 pm, bearing in mind that adults should be an example of punctuality. The first students showed up, the rest of the group only meters behind, noisily yelling at the bus driver who hadn’t waited for them to get off and had taken them to the next stop. This is why my students were fifteen minutes late, because of a bus driver. I wasn’t angry at all as the tardiness wasn’t the of my students fault. My students arrived with heavy bags, having brought everything possible to offer elderly people who have no place to go to and who can’t get what they feel like having. The only people who provide for this population are people who visit them from time to time on Fridays and religious occasions.

I was so impressed by those 14-16 students dividing their gifts into equal shares and putting them in bags for men and women alike, then visiting to those who can’t leave their beds. My students took turns feeding each individual. Some changed socks, scarves and bonnets with new, clean ones. Some students even wiped away previously unnoticed tears. Afterwards, we planned to provide entertainment.

Students and residents gathered in a big sitting-room to have fun; some students stayed with the sicker residents in the dormitory, talking and telling jokes. The students provided music, accompanied by songs and dances; the entertainment had an overall good effect on the residents who quickly got involved in singing, dancing and telling jokes. The women had their hands dyed in henna by a particularly skillful student. We closed the visit with good-byes to the residents and promises to visit again soon.

Everything was so well-organized that both hosts and visitors were satisfied; the hosts were satisfied with the youngsters’ jovial presence and the students were satisfied with the pleasure they felt in donating their time to people in need. As one of the teens said in a moving speech, “these people could be our parents, grandparents, relatives, and even us one day!” I was personally very pleased with my students—so let’s give our teens the opportunity to act and let’s have a positive opinion and outlook about the future of Morocco in their hands.
Edited by Beau Clark 
© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be further published, rewritten or redistributed
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/04/128083/morocco-when-teens-take-action/
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Washington to Contribute to the Implementation of Morocco’s Youth Strategy: Ministry.
Saturday 5 April 2014
Rabat

The partnership between Morocco and the USA concerning the American contribution to the implementation of the national integrated youth strategy was sealed, on Friday in Rabat, as part of the committee of education, culture, and interfaith cooperation, convened on the occasion of the 2nd Morocco-USA strategic dialogue.

According to a statement by the ministry of youth and sports, this partnership is related to the American support for the participatory management the youth department intends undertaking through the councils of youth homes in order to update its prerogatives and meet the new needs of young people in this area.

This partnership, which is part of the strengthening of cooperation between Morocco and the United States in the areas of education and youth, also includes the support by US partners to the department in terms of increasing the number of sport practitioners, by facilitating access to facilities and sports services and promoting training and coaching. 

The US party expressed its willingness to support the department’s efforts in this area, particularly through sharing expertise, the statement said.
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/04/127641/washington-to-contribute-to-the-implementation-of-moroccos-youth-national-strategy-ministry/
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Morocco: Promoting Cooperation And Stability.
By NAPS, Thursday, April 10, 2014

In his keynote speech at the first-ever Moroccan-Ivorian Economic Forum in Côte d'Ivoire's capital, Abidjan, King Mohammed urged Africa to "take its destiny in its own hands" and said that "Africa should learn to trust Africa." He vowed that "a vibrant, developed Africa is not merely a dream for tomorrow; it can be a reality today, provided we take action."

Cooperation Agreements

The many bilateral cooperation agreements, covering a broad range of sectors, signed between Morocco and each of the four countries clearly show that the King meant what he said. More than 80 agreements resulted from the trip—17 in Mali, 26 in Côte d'Ivoire, 21 in Guinea, and 24 in Gabon. Morocco committed with each of the countries to work together on everything from agriculture, manufacturing and finance to housing, education, religion, food security, and health.

There will be joint ventures on fertilizer plants, a flour mill and hospitals; tax-law changes to spur increased trade; construction of affordable housing; and more scholarships for vocational and higher education in Morocco for African students.

Promoting Stability

Varied as they are, the agreements have the same goal: to improve the quality of life of citizens and promote stability and economic success. As Ambassador Michael Battle, U.S. Department of State, put it, "Morocco is setting the pace by showing how African countries which are prosperous can be responsive to African countries which are in the process of becoming prosperous."

Morocco, led by King Mohammed VI and the country's government, financial and civil society leaders, continues to demonstrate that Africans working with Africans to improve people's lives is one of the best ways to ensure stability and stop the spread of extremism and violence in the region, which is in everybody's best interest. Policies such as this are what continue to make Morocco a good partner, to African nations and to the U.S., in both words and in deeds.
This information is conveyed by Beckerman on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Further information is available at the U.S. Department of Justice.
http://world.einnews.com/article/199651770/YtcPX9PliPyVrOO4?n=1&code=F0A6UI8SDeLVJB2O
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Morocco’s mentally ill await deliverance from their ‘demons’.

But many are left wondering exactly what goes on inside the sanctuary of the 16th-century Moroccan saint

Bouya Omar: A thin mist hangs in the air as a handful of troubled souls wander aimlessly around the Bouya Omar mausoleum in central Morocco, the occasional chilling cry rising from behind its walls. These are Morocco’s “possessed” — from violent schizophrenics to hard drug users — who are believed to be tormented by evil spirits and whose relatives bring them here to await deliverance.

But many are left wondering exactly what goes on inside the sanctuary of the 16th-century Moroccan saint, situated in a small town named after him on the plains east of Marrakesh.

Bouya Omar’s followers claim the mentally ill are healed by the saint’s supernatural powers, but rights groups allege gross mistreatment of those taken there, with one former inmate describing months of “hell”. Activists say hundreds of people have been kept in chains here, sometimes starved and beaten, making the place a byword for cruelty and highlighting the stigma attached to mental illness in Morocco.

Their numbers cannot be verified and officials are reluctant to speak about what they say is a “sensitive subject”.

Mohammad, a former drug addict from Tangiers, is adamant that he was subjected to brutal treatment seven years ago.

Taken to Bouya Omar by his brother in 2006 to be cured of his “demon”, he says he was shackled and beaten repeatedly, given barely enough food to survive and robbed of the little money he had. “I lived in hell for a year,” Mohammad told AFP, adding that the experience had left him partially blind in one eye. He says his brother eventually returned and “saved” him.

Damning reports about mistreatment, including one presented by a human rights organisation to the UN group on arbitrary detention visiting Morocco in December, prompted the health minister to announce that he would close Bouya Omar immediately — if only he could. “I’m going to do everything I can to get this centre closed. Unfortunately the decision is not for the ministry of health,” Hussain Al Ouardi said in January.

Popular beliefs

The issue touches a sensitive nerve running through Moroccan society.

Popular beliefs abound in the country, about good and bad genies (“jnun”) capable of affecting one’s daily life, and the power over them of marabouts, holy men like Bouya Omar, whose ubiquitous white tombs are credited with the same supernatural forces.

Over the past decade, sociologists say, King Mohammad VI has encouraged such popular Islamic beliefs, commonly linked in Morocco to the world of healing, partly as a way of countering extremist ideology.

Despite the human rights violations now associated with it, the cult of Bouya Omar falls squarely within this tradition.

The saint’s modern-day followers, who embody his authority and profit handsomely from the money paid for healing, mediate between the “patients” and the jnun believed to have possessed them, in rituals focused around the tomb and aimed at casting out the evil spirits.

“The health minister cannot close Bouya Omar because it serves a political purpose and exists for other social and cultural reasons that are deeply rooted in Moroccan society,” says author and academic Zakaria Rhani.

A source at the ministry of religious affairs admitted Bouya Omar is a “very complex and sensitive subject.”

“The patient is imprisoned in a way to protect him, and to restrain this force, which is a kind of blind force, to exorcise the spirit,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We leave people there because we can’t look after them. But it’s a traditional system and it has to change.”

‘Crime against humanity’

The difficulty of properly looking after the patients, by getting them treatment at psychiatric facilities run by qualified personnel, stems from the backward state of Morocco’s mental health sector after decades of neglect, medical experts say.

Jallal Toufiq, head doctor at the Arrazi mental hospital in Rabat’s twin city Sale, says there are only 400 psychiatrists in a country of 33 million people, while some of the psychiatric institutions are in a “very advanced state of disrepair”.

The US-trained doctor describes the practises at Bouya Omar as a “crime against humanity,” lamenting the “extremely negative attitude towards mental illness” in Morocco, which he mainly attributes to poor eduction. “The level of awareness in the general population is so low that a lot of people tend to interpret their syndromes, their delusions and anxieties, as a curse, as something that has nothing to do with medicine. “So they seek healings in marabouts, and the problem is that they come to see us long after, when they’re in bad shape.”

Mohammad Oubouli, an activists with the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Attaouia, a town near Bouya Omar, has campaigned for years to get what he calls “Morocco’s Guantanamo” closed. “We’re not against what the people believe; they can believe what they like. What bothers us is the suffering of those brought here.”

These are Morocco’s “possessed” — from violent schizophrenics to hard drug users — who are believed to be tormented by evil spirits and whose relatives bring them here to await deliverance.

But many are left wondering exactly what goes on inside the sanctuary of the 16th-century Moroccan saint, situated in a small town named after him on the plains east of Marrakesh.

Bouya Omar’s followers claim the mentally ill are healed by the saint’s supernatural powers, but rights groups allege gross mistreatment of those taken there, with one former inmate describing months of “hell”.
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/morocco/morocco-s-mentally-ill-await-deliverance-from-their-demons-1.1318028
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Cab Ride Experience in Morocco, a Sweet Dream or a Nightmare?
Wednesday 9 April 2014
Fez  

Returning home to live in your own country after a long time dwelling abroad for whatever reason — vacationing, a self-discovery trip, a pursuit of knowledge journey — can be fraught with hardships, to say the least.  For one thing, you can experience what you might call a reverse cultural shock.

Things that are routine to you abroad might seem abnormal to your new surroundings at home; habits and routines that are part of your every day existence may not be appreciated or they may be misunderstood, seeming strange or weird in nature. Questions like “who am I?” and“why do I seem foreign to my own culture?” consume your daily reflections. This is what I encountered in my first few months as an expat returning back to my home country of Morocco after 13 years.

One such encounters was a conversation I witnessed between two British people in Casablanca during a leadership workshop I was part of. “Welcome to Morocco,” — meaning don’t be surprised — a British resident told his compatriot, after listening to his first cab experience in Casablanca: “I rode a cab with an obnoxious driver who tour me around the city. I couldn’t tell whether he was lost or he deliberately took the wrong route. What a waste! It was such an experience,” he complained.

Riding a cab in Morocco is an experience so enriching in social and cultural interactions, but it can also be a nightmare one cannot forget. Taxi drivers are ambassadors of their cities. They are fellow Moroccans, middle class citizens who are hustling to make ends meet. Their service might seem unappreciated and unworthy, yet in reality, they are the engines that keep a city running. Holding discussions with them will, to some extent, put you in direct contact with how society thinks and perceives reality.

While in a cab going on an errand, we were stopped at an intersection in la Ville Nouvelle in Fez. After the usual nonsensical honking that is expected in every similar situation on Moroccan roads, a habit so ingrained in almost all Moroccan drivers, it appeared that a driver was trying to park his/her car causing the upset and “chaos.” Now this was a normal activity that should not create animosity and extreme reactions. But, Moroccans are so impatient that they can’t resist waiting without raising voices, yelling, insulting, honking, and doing all other facial expressions and body language; you name it, they do it.

At that moment, I thought that the incident had ended and that my trip would resume its normal course. To my surprise, the cab driver who was a detail-oriented individual, noticed that the driver was a woman in her early thirties.  He started murmuring, humming and nodding his head as a reaction to what he called “women driving.” I don’t understand why such a normal activity creates such unpleasant reactions. Has the level of people’s indignation and disgruntlement reached the threshold, causing them to lash out and despise one another for no serious reason? Or is it a matter of mentality — an obsolete mindset of recklessness and self-victimization?

The “blame it on someone else” mentality is widespread in Morocco and in all other developing countries. Usually people talk to each other, to themselves sometimes, pointing with their index fingers, putting the blame on “the other.” Men blame women, women blame men, teachers blame students, the unemployed blame the government… This is a vicious circle in an endless tit-for-tat game, seemingly used as cathartic relief. Normally, nobody feels that he or she somehow shares the blame or responsibility for any of the chaotic situations he or she encounters.

Back to my cab ride, Mr. cab driver could not swallow the fact that he was being stopped by a woman.  What if he were stopped by a male driver? Would it have changed his infuriated cynical reaction? “Oh man! She left us waiting for a long time,” he told me in a raised voice reflecting the extent of insult this had caused to his dignity. He continued: “What made me furious is the fact that she acted normally [raising a high five] as if nothing happened, as if we all work for her.”

I tried to interrupt his histrionic vocal whining to save the rest of the trip from being nothing but a complaint session with me playing the role of a psychiatrist doomed to listen to his client. “Put yourself in her shoes,” I said. “Don’t you just stop anywhere at your convenience?  Don’t you disrespect all traffic codes, recklessly racing against everybody?” I asked him. I thought I would put some balance to the conversation and raise the question of equal treatment, equal use of public property. To no avail. I failed in convincing him that women have the same right as their male counterparts to use public facilities as they see fit as long as they abide the law.

The answer I received from the taxi driver was quite shocking, yet plainly true. “The law is in Canada!” he replied with a mocking tone. I was awestruck and in shock, not for the insanity I was witnessing, but for the truth this driver was spontaneously revealing to me, and which I saw but could not understand. Usually, taxi drivers in Morocco, a large number of them, have their own conventional laws; acceptance and/or refusal of service depends on their mood at the time. Try to raise the question of respecting the high authority of the law, or the fundamental principles of civic obedience and customer service [nonexistent], and you will be amazed by the negative responses, and most likely be exposed to mocking and disdain.

The rule of law is almost none existent in Morocco. The kingdom is home to thousands of laws regulating the social, economic, cultural, and political life, but they are not all respected or perhaps only partially respected by people, nor are they enforced by the government. In theory, Moroccan laws and codes are mandatory and must be respected by all citizens regardless of their rank, social status or gender; but reality tells a different story. It seems that laws are optional and that citizens are given the freedom of choice whether to abide by their provisions or to break them at their convenience. This is one of the very few freedoms Moroccans, all of them, equally enjoy and practice on a daily basis without emphasis on ideology. Everybody blames corruption for the lack of responsibility toward public good and lack of accountability for public officials. This is strange! Nobody thinks he or she is the fuel of the corruption wheel for one’s ubiquitous complacency, apathy and indifference.

The fundamental principle that nobody is above the law must practically be implemented in this country. Yet, without a strong and free legal system, that guarantees equal treatment to all citizens, principles that are veritable parts of civility are exponentially diminishing. This gives free reign to new cultures to gain a foothold and prevail — negative  cultures that revere arbitrary governance where citizens take matters into their own hands. Unless the judiciary is independent and authority is strictly enforced, anarchy will reign.  And in patriarchal societies like Morocco, women are the first victims of anarchy. http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/04/127972/cab-ride-experience-in-morocco-a-sweet-dream-or-a-nightmare/
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Corps Africa: An Opportunity for Moroccans to Heighten the Notion of Volunteering
Sunday 30 March 2014 - Mona Badri Goulmima  

Over the last twenty years, CorpsAfrica has grown from a small idea in the mind of Liz Fanning, and the day it sees the light has now arrived.

Being a former Peace Corps volunteer in the High Atlas, Liz Fanning feels the Moroccan drums beat so hard in her heart, bringing her back to a land that earned her love and respect. In 2013, she launched the first pilot year of CorpsAfrica in Morocco, modeling it after the American Peace Corps volunteering program.

The notion of volunteering has always been associated with Americans who come to Morocco and serve for two years in remote villages and high-poverty communities. Despite the amazing work that Moroccan language and culture facilitators do to help integrate these volunteers into Moroccan communities, the language and cultural understanding has remained a barrier to implementing the volunteers’ projects. CorpsAfrica reshapes this idea among Moroccans, choosing Moroccan to serve in their own country for a period of one year.

It is worth noting that Moroccans do volunteer everyday with their neighbors, friends, and even strangers. It is a fundamental part of this country‘s culture and religion to provide unconditional help for other people in need, with the sole reward of a simple Lah Irhem Lwalidin- may Allah have mercy on your parents. CorpsAfrica takes this aspect to the next level and assigns volunteering tasks for Moroccan youth to serve in poor areas and bring positive change to their adopted communities. It is a revolutionary endeavor to “promote community and cross-regional volunteerism, an understanding of poverty that only comes from living it, and encouraging bolder philanthropy toward poverty,” said the official website of the organization (www.corpsafrica.org).

Given its novelty and partially homonymous name with Peace Corps, CorpsAfrica volunteers have often been assumed to be Americans; however, the unexpected fact that the organization recruits only Moroccan nationals has received a remarkable amount of appreciation and encouragement. In its first year pilot phase, CorpsAfrica received a large number of applications from Moroccan youths who were eager to serve in their country and gain new experiences.

Seven young women and one young man are the first volunteers who were chosen to embark on this amazing journey towards discovering another aspect of their country, as well as of themselves. Though the disparity between gender participation in the program is notable, the strict filtering process ensures that the individuals chosen earned their positions in the program due to their qualified resumes.

CorpsAfrica took into consideration the factor of cultural sensitivity. Being culturally sensitive is very important in gaining people’s trust. The volunteers need this trust because through it, they can pave the road toward fruitful community meetings with local authorities and individuals. CorpsAfrica has introduced an entrepreneurial element to the traditional practice of volunteerism, as the young volunteers need to listen to the people to understand the needs of their host communities, working toward changes the community wants and not the other way around.

A potential challenge to this experience for female participants would be the extent to which rural people might accept a woman as an agent of change. Given the conservative and strict practices in some of those areas, a woman might think twice before stepping into a gathering of men.  However, as some volunteers have mentioned in their blogs, mentalities have changed, and men were often the first to voice their requests to female volunteers, while also providing remarkable support and assistance throughout their stay in the villages.

Malika Boukbout is one of the brave Moroccan Berber females who decided to devote one year of her life to occupying herself with other people’s concerns and trying to find a common ground and implement solutions. In an interview with Morocco World News, Malika shared the following insights about her participation in the program:

MWN: Why CorpsAfrica?

Malika: That’s a good question. Because I worked for Peace Corps, I was inspired by Peace Corps Volunteers so I embraced this opportunity to get the full image of the life of a volunteer with all its ups and downs, face the challenges, learn from them, bring change and give something back to my beloved country, be it small.  I chose CorpsAfrica to be the change I want to see in my own country, that being said, to be a role model for generations to come, to instill on them the spirit of volunteerism.

MWN: Was it easy to leave your life behind and give your time and energy to people you do not know? 

Malika : It is not easy to change and get out of your comfort zone. But I believe in what I want and I am pursuing the path because I know that I will reap a lot from it, both on personal and professional levels. I know that it is not easy to leave all the conveniences behind and live in a poor village, but the more I integrate and see how people live, the more I become aware that the material world is not a prerequisite to live a comfortable life. We cling a lot to money and salaries, which we think will make us happy, but happiness is far beyond that. It is how you can dedicate your time to help people.  It is that joy that you make others feel that matters more than the joy you try to make through material possessions.

MWN: How do Moroccans look at a Moroccan female volunteer in a remote village on her own?

Malika : As a female volunteer, and as far as our culture is concerned, to volunteer in a small village far from your home is a little bit frowned upon, which is heartbreaking, especially when you listen to some comments or see some facial expressions from educated people that make you feel uncomfortable.

MWN: What about your family and friends? Did they support your decision?

Malika : My family did not agree 100% with this initiative, but all my insistence and constant reinforcement of whims, inclinations, and the strong desire to embark on this journey made my family give up. On the other hand, there are some other people who seem very excited when I inform them about my volunteerism, they are very eager to know what I am doing and they encourage me fervently. Down the road, I find people who support me and I find solace in them instead of those who scorn and give me a look. As I mentioned before, I believe in what I do and I want to lead by example for generations to come and I will never give up.

MWN: How does it feel to be the pioneer with CorpsAfrica?

Malika : I hope I will be a good resource to other volunteers, smooth the way before them to enlighten it because they will carry the torch and pass it on to the next generation of CorpsAfrica volunteers. I want to instill the spirit of volunteerism- I know that it is in our religion “Islam” and people do it unintentionally and intentionally. CorpsAfrica is an opportunity to give it a professional frame. We need to leave a stamp in our beloved country, let’s contribute, all of us.

MWN: Do you think that volunteering is bound with age? 

Malika : Age does not matter as long as you have a young heart and you are determined. Traditionally, at my age, I am supposed to be married and get a stable job, that is why I was considered by many people who know me as derailed from the usual track.  But they don’t know that I want to beat the unbeaten track in which I find happiness, felicity and bliss; and people perceive bliss differently.

MWN: What is your advice to future CorpsAfrica volunteers?

Malika : My recommendation to the next group is to take into account the fact that it is not an easy endeavor. It is hard to get out of your comfort zone but by cracking its shell, you will reap a lot. You need to be very patient, and patient and patient.

Another CorpsAfrica volunteer was eager to share her opinions. Bouchra Kouryani joyfully disclosed to Morocco World News her reason for joining CorpsAfrica: “I chose to be a volunteer with CorpsAfrica because I like volunteerism. I want to spread the sense of volunteerism in Morocco especially in the small villages. Also, it is hard for me to see poor people live in very bad conditions. I joined this NGO to do my best to help them live a better life because it is my duty to do that. I am young and educated ….I have to help them.”

Bouchra commented on the question of her surrounding’s reaction towards leaving home for a whole year, especially considering that she is a recent graduate, “It is a learning experience for me. I have the opportunity to challenge myself and make new friends, living in another place, which is different than my hometown. It was hard for my family to accept that easily. My mother disagreed at the beginning but later on, and after a long discussion with her, the rest of the family and I had the chance to convince her and my father encouraged me the whole time. He loves traveling, he is open-minded, he agrees with my decisions.”

On her perception on volunteerism, Bouchra said, “I am already involved in a lot of volunteering activities in the Figuig Province, Eastern Morocco.” Her last word to MWN was, “I advise Moroccan young people to do their best and involve in volunteering activities and use their skills to help poor people because it is their duty to do that. I also recommend that they join CorpsAfrica because it is a good opportunity to live a new challenging experience to discover themselves.”

The program started on September 15th 2013 and it will end on August 31st 2014.
Edited by Melissa Smyth. Photo by Joel Dowling
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/03/126936/corps-africa-an-opportunity-for-moroccans-to-heighten-the-notion-of-volunteering/
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Morocco, the Inside Story
By Kathleen Caulderwood . on March 29 2014 FEZ, Morocco

At least five people died and dozens were injured when government security forces clashed with local protestors in the city of Laayoune, Morocco, in November 2010, just days before peace talks were set to begin.

The BBC reported eyewitness accounts of Moroccan forces entering the camp in the early morning with helicopters and water cannons. The violence was “the worst seen here in decades,” according to a story in the New York Times , which also explained how the incident had “renewed a long-festering conflict between Morocco, which governs Western Sahara, and the separatist Polisario Front, based in and supported by neighboring Algeria.”

Adnane Bennis and his brother Samir watched and read about the events in their homeland from the U.S., where they’d moved for work some years before. It wasn’t just the violence that troubled them, but also the media coverage. “Everybody was blaming Morocco,” said Adnane, now 34. “We didn’t see any papers talking neutrally about the problem ....We said, ‘The time has come to create a platform where Moroccans over the world and the Moroccan diaspora can express themselves and talk and criticize or create something else.’”

At the time, Adnane was driving a cab and working a tech job in Chicago, while Samir was busy in New York as a political advisor to the United Nations community. But Adnane had a long-held passion for journalism, and Samir had deep expertise in his country’s politics and history.

Within a year, they launched MoroccoWorldNews.com as a voice from the inside.

Today, MWN is the only English-language publication in the French- and Arabic-speaking country, with more than 80,000 Facebook subscribers and readers from more than 160 countries. The duo funds the site themselves, and utilize a network of volunteer contributors to publish in-country and global news from a Moroccan perspective.

They had a lot to cover at launch.

“One of the reasons we decided to start the website was the so-called Arab Spring [in 2011],” said Samir, 37, who serves as editor in chief. The media at the time focused mostly on Egypt and Tunisia, but Morocco saw its share of Arab Spring protests too. King Mohammed VI managed to avoid the fate of his Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts by establishing a new constitution that made the prime minister head of government. The king has also made great efforts to modernize and make his country a global economic player, but the global community is still quite divided on him.

“Morocco’s 2011 constitution incorporated strong human-rights provisions, but these reforms did not lead to improved practices,” reads a report from Human Rights Watch that echoes other international watchdog organizations.

Meanwhile, the local press has faced severe restrictions. In fact, the monarchy ranks 136th on the World Press Freedom Index and scored just 37 out of 100 on the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Against this backdrop, the Bennis brothers aimed to fill what they saw as a vacuum regarding Morocco in international media. “Newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are reliable, but it’s not like someone who lives in the country and understands the social and cultural issues,” said Adnane over coffee on a rooftop overlooking the city’s ancient medina.

“We have some topics that we want to cover in a certain manner, like the issue of the Sahara,” added Samir, who studied the regional dispute in southern Morocco for his Ph.D. thesis and often lectures on the topic. “This is a very, very hard topic and there is a lot of misrepresentation – I don’t blame people for that …. As a Moroccan citizen, I try to show people the other side of the story.”

The Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich region in the south of Morocco bordering Mauritania and Algeria, has been under dispute for generations. A province of Spain for most of the 20th century, it came into conflict after an insurgency formed in the 1970s, led by indigenous people. Thousands fled the region, and the Moroccan government has been clashing with insurgents there in the years since. Despite various attempts at diplomatic intervention, insurgent groups continue to fight for independence, while Rabat proposes autonomy.  

The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was established in 1991 to facilitate a vote among residents to decide on their autonomy. It is still in operation, but has been criticized for being the only U.N. peace-keeping mission without the capacity to monitor human rights.

Last month, Samir Bennis gave a lecture on the Sahara dispute at Princeton University, where he outlined the 80-year historical background and commented on attempts at resolution. He argued that self-determination for people in the Western Sahara is not a viable option. “We cannot call for a political solution and insist at the same time on the concept of self-determination as meaning the independence of the Sahara,” he said during his talk.

The MWN editorial team charged with presenting these issues to the world are mostly local Moroccans, and some American and European expats and students.

Larbi Arbaoui, an English teacher from southern Morocco, has been a contributor for over a year, writing about everything from banking policy reform to the nuances of Moroccan tea culture. “I remember when I was a student, I was desperately looking for something written about my country in English, but in vain,” said Arbaoui, 33. “With the rise of the Internet, students have enormous sources in English, but still the content about Morocco is very limited.”

Arbaoui grew up speaking Berber, and is one among many contributors for whom English is a third or fourth language. But complementarily, many of the editors are American expats or exchange students looking to learn more about the country or develop their journalism skills.

“I wanted to use my legal, business and writing background, and my cultural understanding of Morocco to help MWN become one of the premier news services in this genre,” said Elisabeth Myers, an American lawyer, entrepreneur and former English major, who edits and is helping the team develop editorial policies, standards and a code of ethics.

“There is much mystique and misunderstanding in the U.S. about Muslims and the Middle East and North Africa,” she said. Dispelling these myths, she adds, is important to help foster communication and understanding in the future.

To that end, the site puts out plenty of good news about Morocco, and “many people criticize us for that,” says Adnane. “But despite the troubles we have, despite the corruption, despite anything that’s happening, we believe that there is hope.” 
http://www.ibtimes.com/morocco-inside-story-1563928
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