A Summer Breeze… from the DSH Agadir Center

Our blog at Dar Si Hmad has been silent for few months now… we have been caught in the midst of adjusting to administrative changes and taking time to constructively reflect on the work we so passionately do with and for our communities.

Safe drinking water has been flowing to all the communities in Ait Baamrane, we have now 8 more villages not to have suffered through the scorching summer-heat to go fetch meager water-amounts from distant wells. They have celebrated the holy month of Ramadan with even more happiness, celebrating water available within the households.

This past summer we have hosted high-school pupils from under-represented groups in the US and we are extremely proud to say that this first experience was an astounding success. The EFS manager Maisie Breit and the DSH team committed all their energy and know-how to delivering a successful program. Gender, race, and indigenous culture were presented, discussed, and scrutinized in different social contexts, thus unveiling how structures of power function in our multiple worlds today.

This summer we have also hosted two very promising researchers from the US, all working on Agadir as their research-site. Their work on ecological issues facing this touristic city is not only timely, but ask key questions as water scarcity and water-waste.  Some of these questions were subsequently taken up by the Climate Chance meetings to have just taken place here in Agadir from the 11^th-to 13^th of September.  All NGO actors coming together to continue and/or initiate the work for a better stewardship and care of our planet. DSH was an active actor during these meetings.

This summer we have hired a new office manager, Abbes Benaissa who comes with a rich experience working in NGOs in Morocco and overseas. We are learning and benefiting from his “past life” and discovering all the enriching new paths in front of us.  New ways of collaborating with other environmentally minded NGOs, with European based volunteers, and with a host of bohemians, free-spirits, folks in love with life and with all the beauty we learn from observing it.

This spring, we also hired a new RISE program officer, Soufian Aaraichi. Another cool breeze of calm and serenity. With Soufian, just like Abbes, other types of free-spirits are joining the organization and taking the environmental work to a new level of connections. All are welcoming and carry the promise of a better today.

From left to right: Soufian, Abbès from their excursion in Wim-Timdouine

This summer we were blessed by a very special visit. All fog-projects in the world place the Chilean case on a pedestal of sorts, it was the first, large-scale and most successful initiative to have endowed fog with the title of a noteworthy source of water. The Fundación un Alto en el Desierto came to visit our fog-project and see how the new CloudFishers function. The blessing of these prophets of fog from Chile to Morocco was a true inspiration to nurture our continuing determination.

From left to right: Mounir Abbar, Natalia Robert and Nicolas Schneider (director and president of Un Alto En El Desierto), Aïssa Derhem

This summer, Soufian Aaraichi, Khadija Changa and Jamila Bargach, we all travelled to the Northern part of Morocco and worked in the mountains close to the Fnideq.  This region is known by water-scarcity during the summer and by the presence of thick fog.  Our field-work concerned some 3 villages in order to evaluate the fog-potential and have the 192 households have access to water even during the dry-season.

Jamila, Khadija and Soufian enjoying the view on the stone quarry.

And finally this summer, we were offered some naked land in the mountains of Ait Baamrane in order to create a fog-fed farm employing the principles of permaculture. Greening the desert, and why not?  This small experiment in which the goal is to mitigate the encroaching Sahara in the region where we work. We are in the process of studying the project and looking into this future of possibilities.

So yes, our summer was quite busy and we are just so happy about it!

Ethnographic School: Rollins College Visit

Dar Si Hmad hosted 14 students and 3 staff/faculty members visiting from Rollins college located in Orlando, Florida (www.rollins.edu), from May 16th until May 22nd, as a part of their field study regarding globalization in Morocco.

The students’ first visit to Morocco started in Agadir (a dynamic coastal city located in south-west Morocco), Where the students spent two days and had the opportunity to explore its beautiful beach and enjoy a wider view of the recently built city from the top of the “Agadir Oufella” mountain.

Agadir recovered from a devastating earthquake in 1960 that destroyed most of the city. Therefore, Agadir is nowadays considered one of Morocco’s modern cities, where both traditional and modern lifestyles meet.

A visit to the earthquake memorial museum was also scheduled to further acquaint the students with Agadir prior to the tragic incident, so that they can explore how the city embraced a path of modernity throughout the last five decades, while experiencing the globalization impacts on the major different aspects emblemizing the city (architecture, clothing, tourism and fishing Industries...).

On their last day in Agadir, the guests attended an “Ahwash” performance (Exclusive Berber village music and dance), in which they discovered the folkloric style of music associated with typical dance moves, that has remained unchanged for centuries.

The second stop was in Tiznit (a city in south-west Morocco), which is widely known for its rich berber history and silver production. The students visited a famous silver shopping center where they discovered both traditional and contemporary silver jewelry.

The third and final stop was in Sidi Ifni (a small coastal city in south-west Morocco), where the students learned more about the region’s culture and history, through a historical tour and Q&A sessions, that were animated by Dr. Jamila Bargach, who worked on the region of Sidi Ifni for many years. Jamila talked about Sidi Ifni during its pre and post-colonial era, showing the students the city’s historical hotspots and talking about its cé"urrent situation.

The second day in Sifi Ifni was marked by a scavenger hunt at the local weekly “Suk” (flea market), during which students had to find pieces of clothes (traditional and contemporary) that were with some unknown vendors. this activity allowed the students to socialize with locals and learn more about the Moroccan traditional and modern clothing behaviour after dressing up mannequins.

On the third day in Sidi Ifni the students visited an all-women Argan cooperative in the neighboring town of Mesti, to learn about the Argan oil making process, and about the women’s intensive manual labor that helps them generate income and be more independent. The students also had lunch at a girl’s boarding school on the same day, during which they exchanged conversations and danced before the girls headed back to school.

During the last day of the program, the students visited the countryside which is known for its calm and friendly nature, along with its hospitable and generous people. They had a traditional breakfast in a local village, then explored parts of the Dar Si Hmad’s fog collection project, which aims at providing the local villages and schools with drinking water since they spend an average of 3.5 hours per person per day for fetching water. 

In the afternoon, the students danced through Sahrawi music vibes, and discovered the traditional folkloric style “guedra”, representing the southern region of Morocco.

Thanks to this intercultural and boundary-breaking initiative, the students discovered a different culture and made new acquaintances in the North-African kingdom.

Fog-Harvesting Project : Story Update

Lack of water is a problem that profoundly affects the quotidian of the villages located in the region of Aït Baamrane, and more particularly the lives of women and young women who spend a yearly average of three and a half hours per day fetching water.

La Laguna University in the Gran Canaria and the Derhem Foundation launched a project for the hydric evaluation of fog in this region in June 2006. After four and a half years of observation and measurements, they came up with extremely convincing results.

The results which were the second best on a worldwide level (10.5 Liters/ m2/ Day) made it clear to Dar Si Hmad that setting a fog-collection system ( collecting water from fog)  in the region is indispensable.

The fog-collection project in Sidi Ifni is a unique initiative in the north african region, whose success will inspire other organizations to follow Dar Si Hmad’s lead, and endeavor to provide drinking water in other semi-arid regions.

In 2012, Dar Si Hmad ascertained that the system is being built accordingly, setting up all necessary material (gutters, connections) to cover the 600 m2 nets area, burying around 6 Km of pipeline underground to link the system with the beneficiaries, and constructing more infrastructure associated with water distribution and storage (wells, tank, cistern and a fountain). 

The project is drawing the media’s attention day after day, including national and international TV stations (Morocco: 2M, Germany: Pro7), national radio stations (Aswat, RTM) and made headline news on an international level.

As of April 2013, the system is almost in working order, and the water distribution is set for the summer season of 2013, giving hope for many women and girls, and opening many doors and opportunities for them.