Physical Health Morocco Project #6501

Clean Drinking Water for 1250 Villagers in Morocco

by High Atlas Foundation

Project Report | Mar 25, 2021
Access to water is not only a necessity but a method of community enrichment

By Carlie Daniel | HAF-UVA Intern

Development. When many people hear this word, they think of infrastructure and improved education but do not necessarily think about the challenges and processes that convert a place to a developed area. Participatory methods have been shown to have many benefits and positive outcomes as a method of development including helping women become empowered, pave a better future for youth, and create successful health education programs. The push behind these programs is essential to the long-term development of rural communities and builds a sense of self by allowing individuals to focus more on personal goals. A large portion of the challenge in development stems from public health challenges, including access to clean water and lack of sanitation because these issues are the basis of human well-being.

Clean water is an issue that plagues countries and rural communities globally, yet only slight improvements have been made in recent years. Currently, 1.6 million children die from complications related to unclean drinking water every year. Access to clean water is vital for all people, and contaminated water often carries lethal diseases thus increasing mortality rates. Approximately 60% of the Moroccan community has access to clean drinking water, but even for the population that does have access to this water, the sources still may be far away and inconvenient for access. Additionally, these sources may include taps, wells, tank water, and open sources; but, in rural areas where people may appear to have water, the source is not reliable or always clean.

The biggest issue is the allocation of water to more rural areas. Now, to most people, it seems that sanitation is a prevalent public health issue, but there is more to it than illness and mortality statistics that are commonly displayed. When clean water is easily accessible for all individuals, individuals have more time to spend on education and bettering themselves. In the process of development, health should be at the forefront of the community goals. Since death rates decrease and less time and resources are being dedicated to issues with water-borne illnesses like cholera and dysentery, women and children can participate more fully in other projects.

In many rural areas, illiteracy rates are higher among women, as they are often pulled away from formal education in order to care for children or gather resources such as food and water to feed their families. The societal notion that men should be the only educated, working ones of the household is outdated, and these Moroccan women have potential that is waiting to be uncovered. The solution begins with the indispensable need for clean water and sanitation in rural communities.

Looking through the lens of participatory development, solving the issue of public health through clean water access is one of the roots of a thriving community. In Somesh Kumar’s “Methods for Community Participation: A Complete Guide for Practitioners,” he acknowledges how participatory rural appraisal allows people to reflect on their experiences and sustainably shape their community while providing a sense of ownership and empowerment. The community members give their voice on the area they feel is of utmost importance to be fixed, and within these approaches clean water access is a favored topic. The projects they decide to complete are far more likely to be maintained because of personal involvement. When outside organizations develop a rural community, their methods are often standardized approaches because they can never be fully cognizant of the deeply rooted issues. With water access, different methods like a well in one community may not work for a different area because of geography and maintenance levels, so individualized approaches are necessary.

Within development, many sectors depend on each other, for example, accessibility to water and education. When community members are too busy working on ways to satisfy essential needs, they have little time to become educated; therefore, if a school is built, its effectiveness is not maximized until we address the issue of water correctly and maintain community access. In a past High Atlas Foundation Blog, Safae notes, ”In our daily water-rich life we may take water for granted, but in parts of Morocco, access to clean water is a matter of life or death. Safe drinking water is fundamental to health, survival, growth, and development.” This point links together access to water and the bigger impact on rural areas. When certain projects are prioritized by community members being at the heart of their decisions, we can change communities in a way that truly looks at the root of issues like clean water access.

Access to clean and reliable water sources not only greatly improves community health, but it is also a step that allows people to focus their time on other areas of life. These may be education, careers, or family care, which all contribute to community enrichment. Clean water is more than just a biological necessity, rather it is a means of allowing every person to live without fear and empower a community for real forward progress.

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Mar 17, 2021
Saving The Nurseries: HAF's Proposals to Water Challenges

By Sanae Benaadim | OFFICE MANAGER | VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR

Saving The Nurseries

Water is one of the most important resource management aspects that integrates the notion of sustainability in Morocco.The High Atlas Foundation is focused on spreading and strengthening sustainable development in Moroccan communities through several big and small projects.There are nexus cycles between three main elements/keys of life, which are water, energy, and food that can build a strong green economy. The USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) team is working on developing proposals by researching potential water resources through field trips.

On February 3, 2021, the F2F team took a field trip aimed at visiting three locations. HAF Project Manager and F2F Volunteer Coordinator Errachid, Project Assistant Lahcen, and I accompanied local volunteer Laarbi for the trip. We drove toward the first area,the Business Center in Ait Ourir 33 km east of Marrakech.While there, the team held a meeting with Anas, Digital Strategist and Communication Manager at AFCD, to discuss their vision for upcoming projects. Kamal, President of the AFCD Foundation, virtually joined the meeting from Rabat.

These projects will be powered by potential partnerships between HAF, the Moroccan Jewish community, and the AFCD Foundation.The AFCD will be the host organization. Their task will be collecting data, conducting evaluations, and facilitating workshops for community members to have increased training. In addition, the Foundation will provide different activities for youth and women.

HAF and AFCD are great partners, whose vision is to do a global study with community members before moving to the next step. The High Atlas Foundation is looking forward to accomplishing other achievements in Al Haouz province. During the meetings, HAF and the community brainstormed the possibilities to create new nurseries, which would create a sense of harmony and interfaith within the Morrocan affiliation.A Multicultural and Interfaith Foundation.

A Multicultural and Interfaith Foundation

HAF seeks to preserve the cultural Jewish heritage as part and parcel of the Moroccan culture through several partnerships. the thing that strengthens the international relationship among the two countries. It is a historical breakthrough to maintain the diplomatic relationship.

HAF is currently operating 12 community-managed organic fruit tree nurseries. One of which is located in the Al Haouz province and the other in the Ouarzazate province. The nurseries were built in partnership with the Jewish community, which helped provide the local population with job opportunities and food-sufficiency.

HAF’s vision is to build more nurseries. The F2F team along with local volunteers take part in participatory meetings with communities around Morocco to identify good locations and develop strategy, where the possibilities become realistic proposals that include all the details.

The second place our team headed during our field trip was toward the tomb of Saint Rabbi Mizhrai in the village of Chames. We met the Sheikh and had a fruitful discussion surrounding the lack of water in this region.

Only salinated water comes from the mountain, which is neither useful for agriculture nor for drinking water. The team decided that the solution is to dig a well near the river,4,000 M from the saint’s tomb. The well’s water will be used for the potential tree nursery.

Full of enthusiasm and passion, the team took another trip to the "Rabbi Daniel Hashomer'' in the Ait Fasca commune. There, the community faces the same issue of accessing clean water.

The last trip was meeting with the president of the Tamagart municipality, Mr. Hassan Azaroual, and community members. Engaging the municipality in a partnership can play an important role in making a tree nursery project successful. This is another community that needs to find a source of water to bring the water to the saint.The president was really impressed by the HAF’s approach and existing tree projects within Jewish lands. He encouraged implementing this project in ''Rabbi Daniel Hashomer'' as soon as possible. The municipality is looking to find ways to provide water for the saint and be part of the project.

Saving The Nurseries 2

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Mar 8, 2021
The Ascendency and Mainstay of Participatory Development

By Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir | President of the High Atlas Foundation

The Ascendency and Mainstay of Participatory Devel

Participatory community movements found a contemporary impetus in post-World War II reconstruction of Europe and decolonization, primarily in Africa. The approach of locally managed change, however, was highly distrusted during these initial years, during which the dominant view was that central-level policy makers are in a better position than the people to make highly productive decisions regarding development projects.

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, passed under the leadership of President John Kennedy, marked an attempt to de-link U.S. development assistance from the nation’s military, political, and economic interests. The Act emphasized “maximum participation” on the part of the people in their own development.

Subsequent decades have shown that market-based models for growth, while generating higher levels of economic activity, also created dependency in developing nations as their economies became increasingly structured to meet the consumption needs of other countries. The participatory approach, which at this time was widely considered an alternative to achieve improved livelihoods, became more desirable by thought leaders and communities that felt that their futures had become a reflection of outside nations’ priorities rather than their own autonomous ones.

By the 1990s, this people’s driven methodology for sustainable community development became mainstream. The focus shifted toward designing the interactive activities to be conducted in order to help local groups in analyzing their past, opportunities, and visions for a better reality that they seek.

Over the past decade, there have been more nations seeking ways to institutionalize the participatory method for development. Local and national charters, programs and frameworks to advance the liberation of women, freedoms for the advancement of civil society organizations, constitutions, and in legally codified requirements are all intended to ultimately be upheld by elected officials and the general public. For countries who are also becoming increasingly amenable to decentralized management systems, their tasks are shifting from creating national policies that enact participatory principles to one of fulfilling these statutory requirements.

Thus, from generations past of participatory activism being distrusted by the mainstream and its gradual growth due to dissatisfaction with market-based solutions imposed by wealthy countries, we have now reached a common understanding that public participation is a, if not the, primary factor of sustainable livelihoods. In most recent decades, participatory requirements have become embedded in institutions. In the decade to come, we face the awesome, grueling, and even existential challenge of finally fulfilling the participation of the people across localities and across nations of the world.

What will be vital in this regard is to constantly improve activities that enable people to act together toward goals that they have defined as a group. Those activities become conducive and efficacious when they are drawn from disciplines and contexts from around the world and adapted to specific situations.

The necessity is that communities gather to discuss their ideas and plans to reach consensus on projects related to agriculture, water, and other essentials of life. These plans are then backed by critical financial sources from all society sectors.

This timeline characterizes the past and present in broad terms. There were participatory pioneers in much earlier decades and centuries, and there are suppressants today, such as those nations that constrict civil organizations and bind women and girls to intolerable controls. These general trends and outlier experiences are informative so that we may be more precise in how we enact participatory movements in all places where they are needed.

Let us hope that the next ten years fulfill the participatory ideal that has been intensifying across all different outlets in order for their sustainable benefits, including prosperity, to be present in our lives.

Dr. Yossef is President of the High Atlas Foundation, which is an implementer of the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program in Morocco.

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