The Capacity Building Program Beneficiaries: FIKR NGO

On December 28^TH 2019, Dar Si Hmad organized a get- together for the organsations and association which  benefited from our Capacity Building program. This initiative provided training and guidance for NGOs in Southwest Morocco. Marouane Ijioui and Hassan Idouhan from the Ifni-based association FIKR attended the event and answered some of our questions, giving you insights on how their NGO functions

Marouane Ijioui, the president of Fikr NGO

Below is a translation of our discussion:

Q: When was your NGO founded and what is your main area of activity?

A: Fikr was founded in 2013 and it works mainly in Cultural activities.

Q: How did you learn about Dar Si Hmad’s Capacity Building Program for NGOs? And why did you apply for it?

A: We learned about it through a friend and for us, it was an opportunity since we knew that the training was meant to empower NGOs active in different fields, including culture –which was what was relevant to us.

Q: How did your organization benefit from this training?

A:  This training taught us a lot and made several concepts become very clear for us.  All this in the end helped us tremendously in becoming a very active NGO in the province of Sidi Ifni.

Q: What are your NGO’s new year’s resolutions for 2020?

A:  We aim to attain two main goals: Revitalizing the cultural scene of Sidi Ifni and empowering future leaders.

Q: Do you see any future possible collaborations working with Dar Si Hmad on a project?

A: Of course! After all, we both work within the field of Culture and in Sidi Ifni which makes a collaboration between our organizations a very likely event.

Dar Si Hmad was delighted to see  Marouane and Hassan again at this get-together – they even showed us a video summarizing all the amazing work they’ve accomplished since the Capacity Building program. 

Dar Si Hmad Highlights of January 2020

Dar Si Hmad kicked off 2020 with the return of our Executive Director, Jamila Bargach, from the Oak Institute of Human Rights at Colby College. Energized by her return, Dar Si Hmad has already had a busy start to the new year and has laid the foundation for many exciting projects for the upcoming months.

Here are some highlights from this past month:

• Dar Si Hmad was nominated for the « Terre De Femmes» prize from the Yves Rocher Foundation. The prize recognizes the achievements of women in promoting biodiversity efforts. This month, representatives from the Foundation came to learn about and film our work in both Agadir and Ifni. 
• We are currently working on connecting a 16^th village to the fog water system. This month we achieved several milestones with the procedural work that is necessary for extending the project and providing the Taloust Valley with fog water. 
• With our educational programs, we ran hands-on lessons on permaculture both in Agadir high schools and in schools near our fog project in Aït Baamrane. These programs encouraged students to reflect on their own consumption habits and the environmental impact of these habits. 
• We hosted many specialists and consultants at our pedagogical permaculture farm. These specialists helped us develop long-term plans for our farm and specifically discussed strategies for restoring the top soil. 
• On January 13^th, Dar Si Hmad participated in a celebration of the new Amazigh new year (2970), organized by students from Ibn Zohr University. As part of this event, we held an art exposition featuring paintings from our Rhizomes Arts Artistic Residency that took place last September. 
• Finally, we are in the process of preparing for our 2020 Ethnographic Field School programs. We will be hosting a group of professors from Quinnipiac University in February, and a group from Lewis and Clark University this March. Our Executive Director and Ethnographic Field School Manager have already visited a permaculture farm with the Lewis and Clark students as part of their Marrakech-based program, and the students will soon be joining us for a full program in Ifni and Agadir!

Dar Si Hmad has kicked of 2020 with many projects, and we are excited to see what else is in store for the new year! Stay tuned for our annual report recapping all of 2019.