Dar Si Hmad April 2021 Highlights

 Our micro-projects have occupied most of our time this past month. In addition to our ongoing rural developmental projects in Ait Baamran, our urban-based educational programs have all been running simultaneously in April. Find below DSH’s highlights from April 2021:

On Saturday the 10th, a new edition of the RISE program was launched. This term called ECO Mill: from IDEAS to STARTUPS, is a training on green entrepreneurship designed by Dar Si Hmad in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of Ibn Zohr University. Benefiting primarily the Faculty students but also other students attending other Agadir-based faculties and Institutes. Two modules have been so far covered, and if you would like to know what they consisted of, stay tuned for our upcoming blog article!

In the same context of developing the students’ entrepreneurial skills, Dar Si Hmad’ Executive Director, Dr. Jamila Bargach attended the inauguration of the Faculty’s new Career Center, a space dedicated to entrepreneurship for the students of the Faculty, training in the Humanities is an asset to discover in the world of entrepreneurship.

At Dar Si Hmad, we’ve also been actively preparing for this year’s Summer Tech Camp to benefit 3 groups of rural girl high schoolers in Sidi Ifni. This new edition will be organized in partnership with the UK organization TERN – The Entrepreneurial Refugees Network, and it is funded by the British Council in the framework of its ‘Leadership for Gender Equality’ program. 

GRACE – Girls Read and Communicate in English- program is another educational program to have run this last month. On Friday, 30th , its closing ceremony was organized in Moulay Idriss High School, with the participation of the beneficiaries’ instructor, Ms. Elyssa Wrubel, online and directly from the United States. 

Regarding our developmental rural projects, Dar Si Hmad’s Office manager, Miss Samira Arjdal, was invited on the 5th of April, to participate as a panelist in the ALINOV Webinar on Green Entrepreneurship organized by MEDAFCO-Development. In this online event, Samira talked about our organization’s experiences in the fields of agroecology and water management. To check the recordings of the two panels that she was part of, click on these hyperlinks: Panel on Agroecology & Panel on Water Management.

In the field,  the construction bricks for our indigenous seed-bank were delivered to our Agdal Id Aachour Pedagogical farm. Please make a donation through the GobalGiving platform to contribute to ecological initiatives! 

Finally, Mr. Mustapha Ouafegha, the project coordinator of Afous Ghissiki, training in Agroecology, has successfully completed the Marrakesh Organics Permaculture Design Course, which will enable him to share more updated knowledge in the field with the beneficiaries of the oases of Tighmert and Ouggoug.

Keep on following us on our social media platforms to receive more updates on our diverse projects!

Dar Si Hmad March 2021 Highlights

You will be hearing from us all over this April as we have been at work, relentlessly, last month! 

Allow us to get you a tour of the highlights of March 2021!

As part of our fog harvesting project extension in Taloust, the foundations for a water cistern were implanted  by the provincial directory of agriculture in Id Bighiden village.

A new experimental Cloudfisher was installed on top of Tabtist Mountain.  This spot is believed to have a high potential for fog harvesting.

Our office Manager, Ms. Samira Arjdal, the fog project’s manager, Mr. Mounir Abbar, and our two rural project coordinators, Mr. Mohamed Hammou-Ali and Mr. Hussein Soussane organized a visit to ZINCO company in Fez to benefit from a training on prepaid meters we will be utilizing henceforth to connect more households to our fog harvesting system.

 

Mr. Hicham Aoumat, from the company Green Solutions paid  a visit to our fog harvesting system to study the possibility of automating the water distribution network.

The members of the Tiznit Association of the Technicians of the Building Sector organized a field trip to the fog harvesting site.

Organic harvest is already being produced in Agdal Id Achour Pedagogical Farm, and the plan to construct Dar Si Hmad’s indigenous seeds bank is ongoing!

A beneficiary of Afous Ghissiki’s agroecology training is also witnessing promising results from the application of the techniques he learned  the previous months. In fact, he has already started commercializing his organic harvest which generates  a decent income for the start.

In addition, GRACE program online sessions with our intern Elyssa Wrubel were continuing in March.

And the preparations for the RISE program that we launched last Saturday were developing quickly.

And finally, a small surprise birthday party was organized at Dar Si Hmad office to celebrate our administration and finances manager, Ms. Khadija Changa’s birthday, early on the last Friday of the month.

For more details on Dar Si Hmad’s projects and activities, follow us on our social media pages!

Dar Si Hmad February 2021 Highlights

It’s already mid-March, and you are wondering if Dar Si Hmad keeps any highlights from the previous month? Yes, of course it does! 

Besides the NGO’s everyday work on the fog harvesting project and its extension in Taloust, the work on our pedagogical farm, the creation of the indigenous seeds bank, the follow-up and support to the beneficiaries of Afous Ghissiki agroecology training, and the many micro-projects it had designed to benefit students and youth on a personal, an academic and a professional level, the following events stood out of our usual endeavor:

• The finals of RISE program Fall 2020 Edition. This latter was entitled ECO-AYA, which stands for Ecological Advocacy Youth Action. The training was two months long, and was all held online, except for the finals and closing ceremony that were organized in the premises of Dar Si Hmad. The performance of the finalists was satisfactory, and the title of ECO-AYA ambassador was granted to Jaouad Lougouail, who advocated for reducing the use of plastic in Souss Massa region.

• DSH’s CELAR students made us a Tagine! Learning the names of veggies in Darija is essential to live and shop in the Moroccan Souks, that’s why in Dar Si Hmad’s language center we always privilege hands-on learning methods. The two fulbrighters taking Darija, Tashelhiit and Classical Arabic lessons in CELAR cooked a delicious Soussi Tagine and a Moroccan salad for the office’s staff last month. 

• A training on the geographic information systems. DSH’s office Manager, Ms. Samira Arjdal, and our fog harvesting project manager, Mr. Mounir Abbar, benefited in February from the aforementioned training that was provided to them by the geography researcher and PhD candidate, University of Cadi Ayyad,  Mr. Youssef Bammou. The mastery of the Geographic Information System is crucial for the development of our rural projects.

• We have a new drawing hung in the office! You surely recall Ms. Soukaina Boukerdi, our graphist guest from L’3mART, the event in which we celebrated Id Yennayer, the new amazigh year. The drawing of the musician Rais Lhaj Belaid that she brought us for the occasion, now makes part of our office’s decor.

Would you like to learn more about Dar Si Hmad’s highlights of each month before the month is over, follow us on our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn pages!

Dar Si Hmad December 2020 Highlights

 

Before wishing you a happy new year, we would like first to invite you to check out the highlights of Dar Si Hmad in December 2020, the sum of events are getting us all ready to hit the ground running in 2021 !

15 Dec: Dr. Jamila Bargach, Dar Si Hmad’s executive director, participated in a discussion panel on water management as part of the 4th World Water Summit that was held live from India.

18 Dec: GRACE program was launched to benefit the female students of Moulay Driss High School in Sidi Ifni. This year’s edition is held virtually, and the lessons of the program are delivered by Dar Si Hmad’s fellow, Miss Elyssa Wrubel from the United States.

21 Dec: Mr. Aissa Derhem, Dar Si Hmad’s president, and Miss Samira Arjdal, the office manager of the organization, attended the inauguration of the water treatment and reuse project for the irrigation of Dar Taliba in Ourika. A green lowtech project led by the Moroccan Startup Green Watech.

26 Dec: Dar Si Hmad organized a webinar to discuss “the importance of youth advocacy on environmental issues in the post-Covid society to achieve sustainable development” as part of the RISE fall term program.

26 Dec: Adnane Addioui, the co-founder of the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, paid Dar Si Hmad a visit in Sidi Ifni, to talk over the expertise and achievements, of both institutions, and to discuss a potential partnership to develop  youth empowerment programs in Guelmim-Oued Noun region.

30 Dec:Lunch in Dar Si Hmad’s office to celebrate the end of the year.

Throughout the month: Progress in our rural projects:

Agdal Id Aachour pedagogical farm

Scientific research to biologically control the Mealybug 

And the fog harvesting project extension

And a continuous endeavor for a special event coming up soon this January. 

STAY TUNED!

DSH November 2020 Highlights

 

Another busy, energetic and productive month despite the challenges that the pandemic imposes on associative life. Please read on to know more of the Highlights and Details  for November 2020, quite  a vibrant month in Dar Si Hmad!

First, our project extension of the CloudFishers in Taloust was the object of a number of  regional and national media reports; the channels’ journalists visited our renown Boutmezguida site first, and then diffused these promising news both to the communities living under  water-stress in the region, and also all advocates of the SDG, sustainable development goals.

Not far from fog harvesting-site, Dar Si Hmad is continuing its training workshops on techniques and philosophy of agroecology in the two oases of Ougoug and Tighremt.  Likewise, this project, supported by the High Atlas Foundation, in partnership with Cooperative Dait Nzaha and the local Association Al-Wifaq, attracted also the attention of the local journalists who reported on this initiative.  The main goal of this action is  improving the yield while adapting ecological practices given that agriculture remains the main source of livelihood in these parts of the country. 

In our Dar Si Hmad Agadir Annex, we have a new intern. He is a computer engineer who will develop a virtual library for the organization with the goal of collecting and organizing all relevant literature for our projects and initiatives. Dar Si Hmad also ran 4 sessions of this fall’s RISE program, Ecological Debating, in November alone. They were all led by professionals in advocacy; the positive feedback of the beneficiaries was unanimous. 

On the last Friday of November, we made sure to continue inspiring you  by another eco-friendly project based in the region of Agadir. For November 2020, we had Atlas Kasbah Ecolodge, an ecotourism structure, be under the spotlight in our monthly Ljamae Azgzaw, Green Fridays program. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, and you would like to learn about the aspects that can make a touristic structure an ecofriendly one, we invite you to click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hjggr9rEsA

And in order to reach the young public and raise the teens’ interest in the environmental issue as well, Dar Si Hmad participated in the Agadir French Institute’s fair where we organized a workshop to introduce the young learners to the global warming phenomenon and its impact on the precarious communities of Aït Baamrane as an example. They learned much about our fog harvesting project and our initiatives to empower Anti Atlas communities in an interactive and innovative pedagogy.

For more exciting updates on Dar Si Hmad, stay tuned for December’s highlights in DSH!

Dar Si Hmad Highlights of October 2020

 

October is the month when activity reaches its peak for most NGOs working in the education field as new academic year kicks off. Dar Si Hmad, likewise and despite the pandemic, was so vibrant with the launching of numerous special events. Below find the list of the organisation’s highlights from October 2020.

Dar Si Hmad’s staff, consultants and interns have been coordinating to finalize the final steps for the organizing and participants’ selection for the Fall Season RISE program. This educational initiative is designed to train university students from the region of Souss Massa and the Province of Sidi Ifni on advocacy techniques for environmental issues. The first virtual class ran extremely well, putting the bar up for what to expect next.

Afous Ghissiki is another educational and developmental project Dar Si Hmad had running during October 2020. The beneficiaries from the two participating Oases are receiving agroecology and permaculture training and have expressed great  enthusiasm for the content of the program, and are now in the process of engaging into the applied section of it.

Always in the countryside, this last month, Mr. Governor of the region of Sidi Ifni paid a guided visit to our fog harvesting site to follow up on our plans of extending the project to Taloust pass. Progress is ongoing on our research and applied experimentation for a biological treatment and natural predator against the Mealybug to have invaded the Aït Baamran that is in the process of destroying thousands of acres of cactus fruit. This is a major highlight of Dar Si Hmad’s November activities.

Not far from Aït Baamrane, in the city of Sidi Ifni, our director Dr. Jamila Bargach has been shooting anthropology lessons as part of our Ethnographic Field School. These videos will soon be ready to share online with any potential student and university program in search for a unique study abroad program, this is to give a simple taste of the variety and wealth of the content. 

Additionally, we held our general assembly for the board members of Dar Si Hmad on the 21st of October. At the end of the meeting, Ms. Maria Laaouimir was appointed treasurer and Mr. Abdelmalek Benmoussa general secretary of our NGO’s board, with Dr. Aissa Derhem continuing as our president.

Last but not least, we at Dar Si Hmad’s staff were very happy as we celebrated our office’s administrative and financial manager receiving her Master’s Degree in Management Control, Auditing and Accounting from the ESCAE, Casablanca. A special event and congratulations to Ms Khadija Changa!

October was very eventful in Dar Si Hmad and November came in even with even more events. Keep on following us on our social media platforms to stay informed and do track the amazing work we do!

Dar Si Hmad Highlights of August 2020

 

Of all specialties, Education has always been the focus of Dar Si Hmad throughout its existence, August 2020 being no exception. From searching for funds to run future educational programs, to designing children-and-youth empowerment programs, and making one of our major educational micro-projects, a lot has happened during this month despite Corona constraints. Read through this article that features the highlights of Dar Si Hmad in August 2020!  

Following the online preparation for the third edition of the Summer Tech Camp and the celebration of Eid Al Adha in exceptional conditions, this year’s program of the camp also had to be readjusted to the context in terms of the content and the organization of the venue. This year’s sessions tackled specific needs of the beneficiaries and had us put special emphasis on the online learning methods that will indeed serve them in the upcoming school year. As for the organizational side of the camp days, Dar Si Hmad did its best to ensure the respect of all the sanitary measures that will prevent the participants in the camp and our staff too from being attained by coronavirus. More than 14 days have passed since the end of this year’s Summer Tech Camp, and no case of contamination with the virus has been declared from any participant in the program. Above all, this year’s edition marked a great success for our organization. We received very positive feedback from the beneficiaries and their families, and our internal evaluation of the program was also gratifying, for all the stress and obstacles that we were able to overcome fluidly.

Simultaneously, Dar Si Hmad, in the company of the members of FIKR NGO in Sidi Ifni, have been preparing the logistics and administrative procedures to launch school support courses for the children of the villages that benefit from our fog harvesting project. Our initiative could not go ahead as planned, but we do not give up as we are currently thinking of innovative methods that can help rural students catch up with their urban-based peers who have access to the internet that fairly facilitates receiving school content. In this regard, we also invite you to think and share with us your project proposal that can be implemented in the actual context of the communities we serve, you could also contribute.

In addition to our youth and children empowerment programs in the planning phase, our work on the agroecological project Afous Ghissiki is progressing and is promisingly growing, especially with the amazing job that Mustapha, the head coordinator of the program, has been doing since his recruitment. Our continued research on the biological control of the mealybug ( Dactylium Opuntiae) in the region of Aït Baamrane is also still on. And today we are looking into adapting the new research coming out of our University in Agadir to counter this bug with a biological predator to stop this invasive species that  threatens the source of livelihood of the local economy.

And as always, the month ends with our Green Friday which has hosted this time Mr. Tom Bebien, a recycling coordinator with Plastic Odyssey; the latter being a world expedition that fights plastic pollution. If you missed our live video with him, don’t worry, we have it recorded for you as an IGTV. And if you would like to see new and exciting forms of Ljamae Azgzaw… stay tuned!