By Hannah Rickard July 2, 2015 HAF interns tag along with a HAF employee and site director to observe a participatory meeting with the Ourika women’s cooperative. I gave a big yawn, the original plan was to depart the HAF office at 7AM and watch the HAF participatory method in live action! As I am

Le 16 janvier 2014, un événement historique dans le calendrier de la Fondation du Haut-Atlas se déroulera simultanément dans différentes zones du Maroc, pour célébrer la réussite de la “campagne Un Million d’arbres“. En dix ans, nous estimons avoir aidé 50.000 personnes à sortir de la pauvreté. Le projet devrait se poursuivre indéfiniment, à un

Here at HAF, we hope that our friends, colleagues, partners and supporters have enjoyed the recent holidays and festivities of Aid el-Kebir, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. We would like to give thanks to each and every one of you for what you have made possible for Moroccan families and communities. On Giving Tuesday, we ask you

The High Atlas Foundation is pleased to announce its new clean energy initiative! With community partners we will repurpose agriculture waste into biomass briquettes, compressed bricks of waste that can be used as a coal or wood replacement. These bricks release fewer greenhouse gases when burned, and help HAF maintain its zero waste campaign. HAF

On December 5, we celebrate the International Volunteer Day, an international observance designated by the United Nations since 1985. On this special day, volunteer organizations and individual volunteers worldwide celebrate and recognize volunteerism, and make visible their contributions – at local, national and international levels – to the achievement of development driven by the people. This

In partnership with National Endowment for Democracy, the High Atlas Foundation seeks to meet the critical needs ofagricultural associations and cooperatives of the Al Haouz and Taroudant provinces. Creating federations is an important step towards achieving this goal, because it is an effective approach to break the cycle of poverty and build democratic processes in the

HAF attended the 5th session of the Open Working Group for Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, 25-27th November. As of 2011, HAF has Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, allowing the Foundation to contribute to design of new sustainable development goals by the international

A letter from HAF President, Yossef Ben-Meir, to the family and friends of Victoria and Kate Jeans-Gail, who died on 28 December 2003 and in whose name was created a community nursery in the High Atlas Mountains. Dear Kevin and the Jeans-Gail family and friends, I write this thinking of what Victoria’s and Kate’s Memorial

مؤسسة الاطلس الكبير كلية العلوم القانونية، الاقتصادية و الاجتماعية بالمحمدية بعد ان حضرت لدورة تكونية نظمت من طرف مؤسسة الاطلس الكبير , اثار انتباهي الاسلوب الذي قدم به العرض من طرف الملقي . بعد هذه الدورة قادني فضولي للبحث عن معلومات تخص هذه المؤسسة , بعد بحثي علمت بالدورة التدريبية التي تنظمها المؤسسة للفائدة طلبة

On January 16th, 2014 HAF will plant its 1 millionth tree at over 40 sites simultaneously throughout Morocco. We want to share this milestone event with local community members as well as our thousands of individual donors worldwide. Get involved: Watch the planting event streamed live on HAF’s website at noon on Jan 16th (7am EST), and

Join us in the 30 day countdown to HAF’s 1 millionth tree! Celebrate Moroccan communities by participating in our social media campaign. See below for how you can contribute to the planting events on 16 January 2014. Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates as we approach HAF’s 1 millionth tree event!

At midday today, following the singing of the National Anthem and the raising of the Moroccan flag, Mr  Abdelouahab El Jabri, the Governor of Essaouira Province, lifted the first spade of earth to plant the first of 23 olive trees in the grounds of Agdal Primary school in the commune of Ait Said, Essaouira Province.

16 January 2014 was an incredible day for community partners and local schools. HAF staff attended planting events throughout 8 provinces, traveling from school to school, community to community, overseeing tree deliveries and environmental lessons presented by local teachers and farmers. Nearly 10,000 trees were planted in the course of 1 day, setting the stage

We are pleased announce that the High Atlas Foundation has been selected to participate in the 1st Euro-Mediterranean Brokerage Event on Research and Innovation on 12-13 February 2014 in Cairo, Egypt.  The event entitled “Mediterranean Science, Policy, Research & Innovation Gateway” will be an opportunity for Project Manager in Al Haouz Province Malika Kassi to

Tree planting with the High Atlas Foundation for me became more than a number on a budget when I visited Rhamna Province and planted olive trees with my colleagues and members from the community back in 2012. It was a cold but sunny day, and the vast hill was spotted with people eagerly digging and

بعد إرسال إخبار للسيد عامل إقليم بوجدور، والسيد باشا الإقليم بمدة تفوق الشهر قام فرع مؤسسة الأطلس الكبير ببوجدور بنشاطه الأول  “مشروع سامي ..الأشجار من أجل الأطفال ” وذلك يوم 16 يناير 2014. النشاط كان تخليدا لغرس الشجرة المليون حيث  أنجز في أربع مؤسسات تعليمية بالإقليم إضافة إلى المجمع الرياضي،  بشراكة بين مؤسسة الأطلس الكبير

The 16th of January was an unforgettable day for me. In the early morning, Aicha Galef, a Program Manager of the High Atlas Foundation, and I left together from Marrakech to Rhamna to visit five schools: Oulad Ba, Ouladlhaj, the Educational Complex of Bouchane, DarTaliba and DarTalib. We celebrated this memorable event – HAF and

On January 16th this year we celebrated our successful planting of one million fruit bearing trees for the benefit of local communities at simultaneous ceremonies held across eight Moroccan provinces.  To date the campaign is estimated to have helped some 50,000 Moroccans take the step out of poverty. HAF is now poised to expand this

Program Manager Last week I had the pleasure of presenting HAF’s innovate social enterprise, High Atlas Agriculture and Artisanal (HA3), at the Agora MedSpring brokerage event held February 12-13 in Cairo, Egypt. Chosen as one of 15 idea carriers from throughout the Mediterranean region, HAF was given the opportunity to pitch its sustainable and eco-friendly business

by Rachid El Kouhen, Father of Sami (after whom Sami’s Project is named) On Jan 16, 2014 we attended the culmination of HAF’s 1 million tree planting campaign.  On that day, over 10,000 fruit trees and seeds were planted in 8 different provinces of Morocco. Sami’s Project was vital in this campaign with the participation

– The Next Step for Cooperatives Is Certification, The McGill International Review, by Amy Zhang (Undergraduate student and HAF Intern), 12 July 2018. • Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 13 July 2018. By Amy Zhang Marrakech This week we celebrate the United Nations International Day of Cooperatives, commemorated every year on the first Saturday of July. Cooperatives’ success in sustainable development,

Communities are ready and land has been granted. This is your opportunity to support the 2014 planting season! Make this season transformational for Morocco by donating to the High Atlas Foundation’s nursery projects.  Public and private partners have lent nine plots of land in nine provinces. Your help can provide seeds for community nurseries before the season ends

“The growth of women’s power and the sustainability of development are inherently tied together. Women have great potential to create and implement solutions to their community problems; these solutions often turn into opportunities for the socio-economic benefit not only of themselves, but of their whole families.” Malika Kassi, HAF Program Director of Al Haouz Province

photo credit: Al Akhawayn Univeristy Al Akhawayn University and the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), a nonprofit organization with offices in Morocco and the United States, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create a community tree nursery on the Al Akhawayn campus. The nursery intends to be an organic agricultural space to promote human

by Safae Lacheheb, Project Assistant, HAF Mohammedia Team It is not my habit to write about topics related to gender, or to highlight the words “women” and “men”, and I will explain the reason. But lately I have been thinking a lot about the position of women in Morocco, maybe because during the past two

The High Atlas Foundation has been conducting participatory planning meetings with local communities in Boujdour province for most of the past year, where people’s voices are heard and action plans are created for priority projects.  As part of the participatory process, public-private partnerships are forged toward providing support for the community initiatives. HAF is pleased

World Water Day (22 March 2014) is a celebration of the gift of water in our lives and an opportunity to reflect on the importance of clean water for a healthy lifestyle and for socio-economic development. Celebrated since 1992 when it was launched at the UN conference on Environment and Development, this year the UN

It is spring of 2014, and we are a year and a half into the life cycle of our project in Mohammedia for training and capacity building in participatory democratic planning and project management with Moroccan members of civil society organizations and university students. When the program first started, its aim was to promote social

A cooperative is a social enterprise owned and run by its members. Whether those members are the employees, customers, or the local community, they share the profits and have an equal say in how the business is run. Cooperatives often enable underprivileged individuals to collectively compete in a market through democratic decision-making and joint-ownership agreements.

I decided to intern with HAF because I wanted to see their work in the field firsthand, and was especially interested in the role of handicrafts for income-generation since I had worked with a women’s cooperative in the community of Oasis Siwain in Egypt. I was keen to see the differences and similarities between two