Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, Katie Bercegeay, and Sofia Ashooh A mother language is the language of the heart. This Mother Language Day the High Atlas Foundation celebrates the people of Morocco and recognizes the importance of human connection and understanding to achieve sustainable development. We are able to express ourselves in our mother language unlike any

Meet Hajiba Boumasmar, Program Coordinator of the High Atlas Foundation, freskincare. The High Atlas Foundation The High Atlas Foundation (HAF) is an American-Moroccan nonprofit that focuses on different areas: youth, women, water, capacity building, cuture, and agriculture. HAF’s work in the agricultural sector includes building tree nurseries, planting seeds, planting and distributing saplings and monitoring tree growth. HAF

Morocco at a Crossroads: The Time Is Now, Qwenu, By Yossef Ben-Meir and Ellen Hernandez. Harnessing the experiences and the history of religious and ethnic minorities in Morocco must be a priority before the holders of that knowledge are lost to time. Moroccan-based civil associations, with the right support, are in an ideal position to gather

Multiculturalisme et Unité : une alchimie dont le Maroc a le secret, Libération, Par Yossef Ben-Meir et Kati Roumani. Arabic version HOUSE OF LIFE est une initiative agricole innovante dont les implications sont profondes et ont un écho avec l’actualité mondiale. La particularité du programme réside dans son aspect interculturel. HOUSE OF LIFE organise le prêt

President of the High Atlas Foundation The guiding principle of the High Atlas Foundation over its life of twenty years has remained fixed: sustainability is a function of people’s control over the development that improves their lives. Projects by and for local communities are what is sustainable. This principle has always been both our heartbeat

– A Model To Achieve The Model For Development In Morocco, By Yossef Ben-Meir (HAF President). Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 23 Juin 2020. French version There may be irony in Morocco now reconsidering and revamping its development model, which is its national guiding frameworks for social and environmental fulfillment. I have long been and remain a believer

Hope Growing in the Cradle of Diaspora, Media for Freedom. • French: World News, 11 April 2020. Meandering through the dusty foothills of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, I played an earnest game of speculation. I knew of my destination, its history and constitution, but had yet to see it or feel the restless potential it encapsulated. The

HAF Volunteer An HAF delegation went on February 4th to Demnate, small city in the Azilal province, to the east of Marrakech. The aim of this day trip was to create, in the near future, a tree nursery that could grow up to 100,000 saplings. Demnate, whose population used to be one-third comprised of Jewish

By Nora Martetschläger HAF Intern Last week, I had the chance to experience part of developing our new HAF tree nursery. Together with my colleagues Amina and Said, I traveled around 200 kilometers from Marrakech to Ourzazarte, to meet relevant stakeholders of the new project at the governor’s office. The new HAF nursery will be

Dear Friend, We at the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) wish you a happy end of year and a fulfilling year ahead This Newsletter is an expression of our appreciation for the students from the University of Virginia (UVA) and elsewhere who spent the last two summers with us and will hopefully join us for summers

Dear Friend, There are fantastic reasons to give today to the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco: Women’s empowerment and girls’ education uplift our life’s fabric and are absolutely real outcomes of our work with families and communities. Fruit tree agriculture, building cooperatives, certifying organic, and processing food products for local and global sales form a

HAF intern Last week I got the chance to take part in some of the program of the Alumni Seminar. From the 6th to the 10th of the November, 55 youth from all over Morocco who participated in the different U.S. Embassy exchange programs met at the Hotel Dar Atlas in Marrakech to share their

By: HAJIBA BOUMASMAR HAF Intern I had the honor of attending; with Mr. Hassan Aladlouni –National Director at the High Atlas Foundation-; the ceremony of the signing of a partnership between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Morocco. This partnership aims to organize the first session of the Marrakech International Symposium of Sainthood and Behavior.

By Imane Akhezzane HAF Project Manager United with a common purpose and with the best interest of the Moroccan community at heart, board members of the High Atlas Foundation, its founding President, Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, and guests had the opportunity to meet during a fundraising ceremony at Villa Sbihi in Salé, on Saturday October 19,

By Camelia Harkousse HAF Intern What a better way to connect with your roots and Moroccan-ity than celebrating Eid al-Adha with Moroccan Amazighs in the High Atlas Mountains? Eid al-Adha is one of the most important religious celebrations in Morocco and how it’s called here is a great indicator of that; “Eid Makourne” (Eid al-Kebir)

By Yaniv Teitel HAF Intern, graduate student at the Glocal program I got the chance to join HAF’s Farmer-to-Farmer staff on their first meeting with the Pomegranate Cooperative at Awlad Abdallah. Farmer-to-Farmer is a capacity-building program that HAF is conducting in rural areas in Morocco as part of a partnership with USAID. It was a

By Fatima ZAHRA LAHRIRE HAF Volunteer In order to promote and preserve the multicultural past that Morocco is known by, HAF has taken immediate action in partnership with local communities. These actions aim to protect the endemic tolerance and peace in Morocco and the long coexistence between the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. The mission

Peter Wu, HAF Volunteer Essaouira may stand as a great example to the world for how religious diversity should prevail: Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities have historically co-existed in Essaouira peacefully. While other regions of the world are endlessly fighting over religious matters, it is both interesting and delightful to observe how the Essaouira people

By Houria Chouhab HAF Volunteer Marrakech is a city entrenched in diversity, this diversity manifests itself in many ways: economically, culturally, and perhaps most notably, religiously. On 21st of May, Mr. Jacky Kadoch, the President of the Jewish Community in Marrakech-Safi region, organized an Iftar ceremony that brought both Muslim and Jewish communities together to

CHOUHAB Houria HAF Volunteer On the 22nd of May in a commune called Ounagha 25km away from Marrakech MOGADOR Cooperative, a women’s cooperative of Argan products and Amlou, had a meeting with The High Atlas Foundation’s team and the ambassadors of FRÉ Skin Care. Both FRÉ and HAF execute activities within this cooperative, benefitting the

French version Dear Friends, My name is Martine Roberts and I am the newest member of the Board of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF). I am writing to you from Marrakech, Morocco, where I have spent the last month immersing myself in HAF’s mission and current initiatives. As a Moroccan-American woman, I am honored and

Youssef Moussaoui HAF Volunteer On Thursday, the 28th of March, the team of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) visited with HAF Board Member Martine Roberts the nurseries of Akrich, Imegdal, and Tadmamt. Our first stop was the Akrich nursery where HAF planted over 30,000 almond and fig seeds. Talking about the ways to preserve and

By Yossef Ben-Meir HAF President The High Atlas Foundation had the great pleasure to welcome former Fulbright Scholars from the United States to its office in Marrakech. It was a great feeling to be together, people with the shared commitment to utilize opportunities for research and education to measurably move forward the people’s development.  Our

By Houria CHOUHAB HAF Volunteer One of the good feelings is walking into a place for the first time and having flashbacks to childhood memories, and this is exactly what happened during my visit to the MOGADOR Cooperative. The Cooperative is in the center of Ounagha, 25 km from Essaouira, and it is surrounded by

– Civil Society Matters to the Sustainable Development Goals, Global Research, by Peter Jacques (Visiting Expert), 8 February 2019. •  Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 16 February 2019.Life and death for whole communities hang in the balance of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include eliminating poverty, conserving forests, and addressing climate change, passed by the United Nations unanimously

Work-study students, interns, and volunteers of the High Atlas Foundation have opportunities to analyze development as it is experienced in rural and urban communities, by farmers, women, youth, and people of all backgrounds.  We also give the students and volunteers the encouragement and support that they need in order to write their observations, improve upon their writing,

 By SAID EL BENNANI, Project Manager Crossing the High Atlas Mountains—from Marrakech to Ouarzazate—to get to the Ighrem N’Ougdal commune, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) decided with the Jewish community in Morocco and all of the local authorities to start planning the first fruit tree nursery in the Draa Tafilalet region. This follows the successful

Today we had a great meeting with the director of the Cultural Delegation in Essaouira, Zhor Amhaouch. We had the opportunity to discuss together the project to restore a Franciscan church, which will not only preserve the historic, diverse, and magnificent cultural heritage of Morocco, but also create human development opportunities for local civil society

– المغرب العميق بعيون جزائري, Sotal Iraq, by Brahim Bahmani Rai (HAF Intern), 28 November 2018 الكاتب: إبراهيم بحماني الراعي متطوع في مؤسسة الأطلس الكبير    بعد انتهاء مرحلة التعليم الجامعي في شهر يونيو سنة 2018 فكرت في تنظيم رحلة سياحية الى خارج الوطن، فشاءت حكمة الله أن أزور لأول مرة في حياتي البلد المجاور لدولة الجزائر وهي دولة المغرب

– A Model to Implement Sustainable Development in Morocco, SAIS Review of International Affairs, by Yossef Ben-Meir (HAF President) 12 October 2018.  In terms of human development potential, Morocco is a nation of immense promise, where gifted fortunes of nature such as wide-ranging organic agricultural products come together with dynamic social development frameworks. This could launch the