Dar Si Hmad highlights of March 2020

We always keep you informed about Dar Si Hmad’s main events and actions via our social media platforms, we had to however close our offices to respond to the call “stay home,” but we continue being close to the community we service. 

We always keep you informed about Dar Si Hmad’s main events and actions via our social media platforms, we had to however close our offices to respond to the call “stay home,” but we continue being close to the community we service. 

During the same period, Dar Si Hmad had GRACE program running, Girls Read And Communicate in English reactivated after the brief stop it took when our former intern, Ambar Khawaja, completed her mission. This time, it was Gwen Whidden, a Fulbright who teaches English at the school of trade and management, the ENCG of Agadir, who volunteered to do this job. Her first meeting with the beneficiaries, students from Ibn Maja high school was indeed promising as more students expressed their interest in joining the program.

Unfortunately, both these initiatives were interrupted by the emerging pandemic Covid-19 that caused a sudden shutting of the countries’ borders. Finding plane tickets to get the Lewis and Clark students back home was a difficult moment. Dr. Leah Gilbert, their professor, our EFS manager, Perry DeMarche, and our ED worked tirelessly until they got all the students back home. In the end, even our EFS manager had also to leave back to the US given all the uncertainty in the world today; we miss Perry every day at Dar Si Hmad. 

Gwen Whidden, on the other hand, left to the US through the coordination of the US consular services. She and the other Fulbrighters were sent back home. GRACE is now on hold, but we hope, nonetheless, to be able to launch this program once more as soon as a new native English speaker joins our NGO once we resume our activities.

Finally, we had to close our offices in Agadir and carry the remaining work from home. Only few staff who work in Boutmezguida stay in the field as we are currently building an extension to the fog project. Our permaculture farm, Agdal Ibrahim IdAachour, needs to be maintained as well where staff continues to care for the plants. All other programs are presently on hold but we hope everything will soon resume after all of us have taken this moment to reflect on what this pandemic means for our human societies.