Morocco: bright prospects… for women
Related project
Echoes of women’s voicesEarly this year, the Association Initiatives Citoyennes (Citizen Initiatives Association, or AIC) met with around fifteen other associations, cooperatives and elected officials committed to championing the cause of Moroccan women in the Marrakesh-Safi region. Its aim is to work alongside these key players on the ground to ensure the Echoes of Women's Voices is a collaborative success.
Many female voices will soon be heard rising from the eight provinces of the Marrakesh-Safi region. Partnerships and collaborations are already taking shape between the AIC and around fifteen local partners. During their preliminary visits in January and February 2019, Yassine Aabbar, Laila Jourane, Zakaria Bouaaoui, Mahjoub Bisnas, Fatima Elguerdane and Azeddine Aabbar promoted the project with great conviction.
As members of the board of AIC, they presented the partners involved in Echoes of Women's Voices (CFI, FMAS and AIC) and outlined the key challenges of the project. Above all, the visits were an opportunity to listen with a view to identifying women's needs, aspirations and current expectations. Young women and leaders were identified within these organisations. The task of selecting contributors to the debates and broadcasts of the mobile Internet radio studio will soon get underway.
"The feedback has been quite positive and the response to the project has been good", explains Azeddine Aabbar, a Project Manager at AIC. "They found the project interesting and very helpful for highlighting women's initiatives in the rural world, and also the problems they face. They emphasised the importance of the project's participatory approach, of involving them in training from the outset of the project and afterwards the freedom to choose topics, workshops and broadcasts."
Among the organisations met were Sahrij pour la femme (Sahrij for Women), an association dedicated to supporting pregnant women in disadvantaged regions through the provision of health and social care, the agricultural cooperative Albessma, which provides training to women to work in the baking and pastry industry, Dar Moustaqbal, a shelter and training centre for underprivileged young women from rural areas, and the Equal Opportunities and Gender Approach advisory board in Smimou.
The importance of involving the men from these villages in the project was underlined on a number of occasions. The Echoes of Women's Voices project will be officially launched on 29 March in Marrakesh at a press conference open to all!
Find the Citizen Initiatives Association online at Facebook.
