Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

the right to an education, the right to equity, and the
right to work. I still continue, every day, to discover the
meaning of new words that are important in our lives.”
The program in Zagora has been so successful
that it is now expanding to other educationally underserved
areas elsewhere in Morocco, such as the
provinces of Tangier and Al Haouz in the north section
of the country. In Al Haouz province alone, the
program aims to provide basic literacy training to
2,000 women in eight rural villages.
Teaching fundamental reading, writing, and
mathematics skills is the cornerstone upon which
the partners in the project intend further upward
advancement in the status of rural women in Morocco.
All told, the program
aims to reach more than
25,000 women, in the
process also helping to
reduce the prevalence of
malnutrition and eye disease.
Follow-on literacy
projects will assist these
women’s integration into
the country’s social and
economic fabric by providing
the women with
the skills they need to
create their own microenterprises, so they earn a regular
income. Among the 43 such business ventures
already in operation are agricultural projects, livestock
breeding, restaurants, inns, and pre-school centers.
These employment opportunities also are helping to
reduce poverty levels and promote sustainable development
in Morocco’s rural regions.
This women’s literacy program is not the only
U.S.-funded initiative focused on improving educational
opportunities and achievement among
Moroccan girls and women.
USAID—through funding from the Middle
East Partnership Initiative, launched by the Bush
administration in December 2002—provides $2 million
to support, for example, U.S. and Moroccan
NGOs engaged in literacy training. These efforts will
assist the Moroccan government’s Secretariat for
Literacy in developing new literacy-training materials
and instructing trainers how to use this material.
The literacy training is part of a larger, recently
launched $40-million USAID education program
that focuses on basic education and workforce training.
The program also will put an emphasis on girls and
women.
Similarly, the Moroccan government’s Rural
Girls Educational Support Committee has received
more than $500,000 to provide financial support for
100 Moroccan girls for three years so that they may
finish middle school. The committee and local NGOs
also are opening five homes to provide these girls with
safe and culturally acceptable
living quarters near
their school.
“I now want to thank
all those who have contributed
to the success
of this marvelous program,”
Fatima says.
“They have made it possible
for words—their
meaning and what they
hide—to belong to everyone.”
She adds, “These
words have allowed us to enter the path of dignity.”
For more on the Middle East Partnership
Initiative, see http://www.mepi.state.gov/, and for
more information on U.S. Agency for International
Development grants, see http://www.usaid.gov/.
Z
Above, one of the Moroccan participants in Helen Keller International’s
training proudly displays the radio station that is part
of the basic education and sustainable development effort.
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