Cyrena Matingou UVA-HAF Intern Imerdal, July 2021. In a time of uncertainty, from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the inevitable impacts of climate change, bolstering Morocco’s ability to produce its own food is crucial. As a result, participatory methods for managing agricultural production are a vested interest for the Moroccan government and economy.

By Grace Gray, HAF-UVa student intern Rabia, Amit, Kaoutar, Grace. For the first few minutes of our conversation with law students from University Cadi Ayyad this June, these were the only words our group collectively understood: our names. I latched onto each one like an island amidst churning seas of less-understood Darija and English supplemented

Lede: In Morocco, most doors shed light on the country’s past and present. By Sabine Stratmann, HAF-UVA volunteer A door in Chefchaouen, Morocco. Photo: Sabine Stratmann/HAF Gazing at doors in Morocco is like time-traveling into the depths of Moroccan history. In medinas as well as the newer areas of the cities, both modern and centuries-old

– Triangulating Peace: How a Synagogue Can Revitalize the Jewish Identity in Interfaith Morocco, The Paradise. By Addie Simkin Photo of the Church of the Holy Martyrs and the Mosquée de Guéliz, taken July 13, 2022. Have you ever had a million-dollar idea? One that sticks with you, whispering in your ear that if you

By Susana Fernandez Tuesday of this past week, I along with a few of my fellow interns at HAF got the opportunity to join the tree planting team and visit a location in the Al Haouz province. At this site they are planting almond, carob, and olive trees; in total 40,000 trees are going to

By Cyrena Matingou We spent two days this week in the mountains of Ourika Valley on vast plots of land. On Tuesday, we were more engaged with the tree planting team, and I genuinely felt I was helping further HAF’s mission, but Monday presented me with an invaluable learning experience. Abdeljalil Ait Ali introduced us

– Morocco: Religion, Women, And Police – OpEd, Eurasia Review. By Sabine Stratmann The acronym ‘ACAB’ spraypainted on a wall in Marrakech, Morocco (Photo supplied) Distrust in police institutions is an international phenomenon. Walking among the streets of Morocco, one may notice the occasional wall with the word ‘ACAB’, an acronym standing for ‘All Cops Are

A lesson from the farmers and trees of the al-Haouz province By Livie Nute, HAF-UVa student volunteer Grafted Carob Sapling, Photo by Livie Nute Never before had I sat with a branch in my hand and thought about what it means to sit with a branch in my hand. I tend to address branches with

By Ryan Winegardner, UVa/HAF student-intern The community members and the HAF team unloading and organizing the tree saplings (credit: Ryan Winegardner) There is a great horror and a curse that can sometimes overwhelm me while doing development work. It was maybe at its greatest when HAF visited Al Haouz province to plant trees with the

By Zoe Costello Figure 1: Jemaa El Fnaa at Night, Photo by Keely Fitzimmons, UVA student and HAF intern One of the most iconic sites of Marrakech is the medina, where the bustle and excitement of thousands of tourists and locals is prevalent daily. Rows upon rows of souks line curving alleys with merchants who

By Addie Simkin, HAF-UVa student intern On Monday morning, June 6, the High Atlas Foundation’s office was crowded with young people. Law students from the University Cadi Ayyad who work with the HAF’s legal aid clinic arrived to participate in an identity mapping workshop with the UVA interns. HAF’s Ikbale Bouziane facilitated our dialogue and

By Susana Fernandez On day two of our visit to Tiznit, the first stop was a school in a rural community that desired funding to improve its water infrastructure. The school has been working on improving the conditions of the school, with having new buildings and creating an agricultural presence on its school grounds. During

by Zoe Costello, HAF-UVA student intern How can you sum up a topic as broad as gender or race in 15 minutes? Is it possible to have such discussions with a large language barrier and between two cultures that have widely different understandings of the concepts? These are questions I pondered after completing a workshop

Ryan Winegardner, UVA/HAF student-intern The road to Tiznit from Marrakech runs through the mountains, a landscape that floats and rises and arcs like the mezzanines and cantilevers and walkways of what could only be a heavenly architecture. Over the red and rocky landscape, the mountains truly seemed to be the spires of fairy-tale castles, and

By Keely Fitzsimmons Cacti in the Souss-Massa region were devastated by the Dactylopius Opuntiae pest. Photo Credit: Keely Fitzsimmons This past Wednesday, I attended a virtual Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) workshop on how to use the SDG Impact Assessment Tool. SDSN member organizations from around the world, including the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), were

Addie Simkin HAF-UVA Intern On Monday I made couscous. That morning, we traveled to a HAF tree planting site to learn about grafting. Abdelilah taught us that grafting is important to the carob trees he supervises because when grafting, the farmer can select for the best flavor and the trees produce fruit years faster than

Zoe Costello HAF-UVA Intern While roaming through the winding hilly streets of the Tangier Kasbah, I made a friend. He was laying in front of a shop front as we walked by, with ribs protruding and matted dirty fur. The merchant shooed him away; sickly strays are bad for business. We all stopped to look

By Sabine Stratmann HAF-UVA Intern Three interns sitting across from me sparked a game to play. One girl suggested that the people around her should shout out random words, and that she would attempt to make a short story out of those randomly chosen phrases. The boy and girl next to her agreed to attempt

By Addie Simkin   When geologists drill core samples, they’re making historic records in the form of cylinders of ice that contain the climate conditions of hundreds of thousands of years ago. The scientists can select a point on a field of ice, drill into the earth to collect it, and from that sample understand the

By Ryan Winegardner, UVa-HAF Student Intern Keely Fitzsimmons/HAF In the fog at the third school we visited outside Tiznit, I stood on the rocks on the hill and wondered what lay beyond. I could see only a few meters out because of the fog, which hung like a great white curtain separating me from the

By Sabine Stratmann, UVa student/HAF volunteer What is an example of ‘home’? This question was asked numerous times during the Experience Dakira conference held from June 8, 2022 to June 10, 2022. With visitors from France, Africa, America, and other places of the world, each person attending Experience Dakira traveled to Marrakech to learn of

By Zoe Costello, HAF Intern and University of Virginia Student Zoe Costello with HAF team at the Experience Dakira Conference, June 2022. Photo: HAF “We want the youth to acquire the city and all the values it embodies.” This quote, stated by a participant in the Experience Dakira Conference, embodies a huge component of the

By Kelsey Cashman, UVA Student/HAF Volunteer Photo by Kaoutar Ait Lahaj, HAF Program Coordinator From June 8-10, the High Atlas Foundation organized “Experience Dakira,” a conference of multiple organizations dedicated to enhancing religious and cultural preservation, learning, and social cohesion in Morocco as part of the USAID Dakira program. Immediately upon walking into the Palm

Ryan Winegardner, UVa/HAF student-intern When the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) team took the University of Virginia interns to Akrich, it was the first time we had left the red walls and palm trees and cool avenues of Marrakech since arriving four days previously. Compared to Charlottesville, it was a landscape enveloped in the wind and

Ryan Winegardner, UVa/HAF student intern There was a holiday atmosphere at Al Mansour Eddahbi Middle School when the HAF team arrived on the 26th of May, 2022. Children were arranging display tables in the shade of the cloister; the eighth grade girls were just beginning to emerge from their dorms in multicolored kaftans; the schoolchildren’s

– Hydroponics And Vertical Agriculture In Morocco And The World, The Garden Center News. By Carter and Henry Prillaman A vision for the future of agriculture and possible implementation in Marrakech, Morocco Our agriculture system as we know it needs to change. We see an enormous amount of waste in current practices through using up

Women’s Empowerment and Yoga in Rural Morocco and in Your Life, Indepth News. Catrin Waters An Imagine empowerment session in Morocco (High Atlas Foundation, 2021) Before you read this, I challenge you to pause and ask your body the question: how do you like the thoughts I think about you? When we make an active choice to listen to

– USAID’s Agricultural Transformation for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems, Indepth News. By Henry Prillaman HAF-UVA Intern I attended the 2021 pre-summit for the world’s premier forum for African agriculture, the Agricultural Transformation for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems (AGRF). The forum consisted of many great speakers and commentators discussing different parts of African agriculture,

Youth Activists Are Leading the Way for Peacebuilding in Yemen, Al Bawaba. • Arabic: Sot Al iraq, 16 September 2021. Hanna Hassan HAF-UVA Intern Yemeni youth are among those whose lives have been entirely consumed by the six-year long civil war. This comes as no surprise as young Yemeni men and women represent more than 60% of

Sub-Saharan African migration into Morocco, Modern Ghana. By Max Berengaut Entering Morocco, Sub-Saharan African migrants find themselves at a crossroads. There is the promise of an economic future waiting for them in Europe, but the path to it is perilous. They require either an assurance of asylum status or some familial relationship with a European