HAF Intern On the morning of the February 17, 2020, I’m going to pass the day with Imane, Karam, Nic and Yossef: international HAF convoy. In the car, the music gives the rhythm to the landscapes which pass before our eyes. Linkin Park and the Norman singer Orelsan are coming on the trip. I learn

Dear Friend, I have often felt that each project is a miracle, literally. When we look back during times of shared evaluation, who could have known or predicted all the roads we would take or the partners that would make each step possible. And, somehow, with the grace of so many people, hundreds of thousands

HAF Intern On February 14th, I went with three members of the High Atlas Foundation to a primary school near the town of El Gara in the Berrechid Province. During this day, two workshops were organized in order to raise awareness about climate change among the young generation. The first activity was aimed at having

Tifaouine Angale, in Anougal in the South of Marrakesh HAF Volunteer Down to the village of Anougal, on February 11th, the Farmer-to-Farmer team visited this women’s cooperative for the first time. On this sunny day, a dirt road is leading us to the small village of Anougal. Olive trees, mountains, rocky constructions and dry rivers

Fes, Morocco The introductory panel consisted of Drs. Myriam Cottias, Catherine Coquery-Vidrovich, Salah Trabelsi, Klara Boyer-Rossol, Suzanne Schwarz and Chouki El Hamel. The Center for Maghrib Studies at Arizona State University (CMS) organized a conference on Race, Gender, and Migration in the Maghrib on December 15-17, 2019. The conference was sponsored by L’Unité de Recherche

Nic Pantelick HAF Volunteer Yesterday, I traded the sprawling city of Marrakech for the rolling foothills and winding roads of the Moroccan countryside. Watching this buzzing metropolis retreat through the back window of the car we rode in, I was filled with excitement. After an hour of driving and stop for lunch, we arrived at

– Youth Entrepreneurship In Community, Ethiopian Observer, By Yossef Ben-Meir (HAF President), 15 January 2020. • Arabic: Al-Watan Voice, 22 December 2019. Moroccan youth today, whether urban or rural based, face enormous obstacles in achieving their self-development and in creating the improvements they seek for their families, communities, country, and even for the world. As they know all too well,

By Katie Bercegeay HAF Project Manager On December 14, 2019, law students at University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah convened for the third of six training-workshops designed to prepare them to deliver pro bono legal aid at a faculty-housed Clinique Juridique, or legal clinic, starting in early 2020. USMBA Law Professor Professor Lamzaraa facilitated a training

By Katie Bercegeay HAF Project Manager On Friday, December 27, law students at University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah in Fes gathered to continue in a series of training workshops preparing them to work in a faculty-housed pro bono law clinic in 2020. The morning began with a short exercise to practice active listening. Students–and even

By Kerstin Opfer Operations Manager North Africa is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change and characterised by severe environmental degradation. This compromises already scarce natural resources and thereby the countries’ economic performance, which is heavily dependent on natural capital such as agriculture, phosphates, mineral resources and fisheries. This in turn also

HAF Project Manager Twenty-nine master’s and doctorate-level law students participated in the second of a series of workshops and trainings designed to prepare the students to work in a new law clinic to be housed at the Faculty of Juridical, Economic, and Social Sciences at the University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah in Fes. Fourteen of

By Kerstin Opfer HAF’s Operations Manager We are living in a time where humankind faces an unprecedented challenge – it is the warmest it has ever been on earth since human presence. The dangers of climate change are known since the 1980s but a lack of will and societal awareness has inhibited the necessary vigorous

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

By Yaniv Teitel HAF Intern Last Friday, I had the privilege and honor to conduct a workshop for the High Atlas Foundations staff members which I tentatively titled “Feminism & Masculinity”. The workshop was a pilot for a larger program that will hopefully start soon – an empowerment workshop for men from rural areas in

HAF Project Manager A training program to engage and prepare university law students to give supervised pro bono legal counsel to marginalized persons in Fes was launched during the second week of November. An initial meeting with 37 masters level law students studying at University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah was conducted on Thursday, November 14.

HAF Project Manager On October 10, 2019, the High Atlas Foundation kicked off a new project in partnership with the University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (USMBA) in Fes to establish a Law Clinic and Legal Aid program which actively engages students in experiential and service learning for the greater good of the local community. Born

The High Atlas Foundation at the United Nations Dear Friend, This Newsletter presents the sustainable development work of the High Atlas Foundation and our fulfilling the Special Consultative Status at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations that we have enjoyed since 2011. We are facilitators of development that local communities of Morocco seek, and

HAF intern Last Friday, we had the chance to try out some of the methods we use in our empowerment workshops ourselves. My internship colleague Yaniv conducted a half day workshop entitled “Masculinity and Feminism” for the whole staff in the office. So, as the title of one of my last blog posts included “Women

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 Florence Jordan World Challenge Traveller Coming from London, this project really showcased the differences between our homes, and the homes and lives of those living in Tizian in the High Atlas Mountains. During our stay, we were introduced to the differences in culture and language in Morocco compared to the United Kingdom. We were

Arabic version PRESS RELEASE CONTACT INFORMATION Loubna Arrach                       Kamal Akaya Alumni Coordinator               HAF Seminar Manager arrachl@state.gov                  kamal@highatlasfoundation.org +212 6 73 05 70 33              +212 6 63 66 27 68 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE U.S. EMBASSY, HIGH ATLAS FOUNDATION HOST ALUMNI LEADERSHIP SEMINAR MARRAKECH – The U.S Embassy in Rabat, in partnership with the High Atlas

Georgina Kenchington HAF Volunteer When you think about successful associations and the faces behind them, what are the first things that come to mind? Is it the meticulous business plans that, at some stage or another, came into fruition? How about the scrupulously drawn out financial projections that laid the foundation for future budgets and

– High Atlas Foundation’s Errachid Montassir Selected To Attend The Un Youth Climate Summit In New York, APN NEWS, By Yossef Ben-Meir (HAF President), 16 September 2019. Errachid with rural primary school students, conducting an environmental workshop in Ait Hamou municipality in the Marrakech region (Photo by Nisreen Abo-Sido; January 2019). Errachid Montassir of Morocco, a project

By Imane Akhezzane Project Manager As a part of a multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSP) project on renewable energy in Morocco, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) facilitated a conference of Climate Action Network – Arab World in Rabat on September 1st, under the topic: Current State of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) Review in the Arab Region Towards

By Isabel Clark World Challenge Team Member As part of my World challenge trip to Morocco I was expecting to work on a local initiative in the Tizian village but I never realised how rewarding the experience would be. On the 7th of July my World challenge team and I said ‘Salam’ to Morocco. We

By Alissa Brenn HAF intern and graduate student at Zurich University of Applied Sciences The Kingdom of Morocco has set high goals: According to the country’s energy strategy, 52% of its energy needs should be met through renewable means of energy production by 2030. However, the ultimate goal in the age of climate change is

HAF Intern, UVA student What is scalability? At its core, scalability is expansion, and often unlimited expansion without the need to redefine any of the fundamental elements. Such a concept enters the field of development when discussions of projects, organizational capacity, and networks center around expansion. The number of communities that participate in a women’s

Carol Ma Yau Ka HAF intern, CUHK student Morocco has a relatively young population, with 42% of its citizens aged below 25. The young population provides Morocco with strong human capital, and thus huge potential for future development. However, youth in Morocco are facing great difficulty in terms of education, employment and inequality. In the

On July 26, 2019, Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, President of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), was invited by AFCD Foundation in Ait Ourir as a leader to give a talk about HAF’s scope, activities, and approaches to sustainable community development. The talk, which was one hour long, is a part of the agenda of a workshop