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Template for Funding Proposal
Junior CorpsAfrica/Maroc Date:
Project Title: Multifunctional building Name of Village/Region: Tizi ------Zoggart
Introduction:
In order to implement change within Tizi Zoughaght village, a multifunctional building will be built, which will integrate solutions to the villagers' problems. This building will consist of a pre-school, a women's cooperative, and a meeting place for the community members. This project will be done with the collaboration of CorpsAfrica/Maroc and Journeyman International. This project will have a great impact on the village's development. As a result of this commitment, our team expects outcomes which will result in families breaking away from the poverty cycle. By implementing our project, the village’s women will be empowered and trained for economic independence, the village’s literacy rates will increase, and the local community association will have a stable meeting place.
Background[1]
● Provide background information on the community (i.e. geography, number of people, demographics, history, etc.) – provide facts and numbers wherever possible.
Bordering the serene foothills of the High Atlas Mountains and in the heart of the Toubkal Mountains resides the pretty village of Tizi Zeguaghte; a small Berber village located in a valley by the name of Azzaden. “Zeguaghte”, a Berber word which means red color. Some villagers have stated that the origin of the name comes from the fact that some parts of the village have a red soil. Most villagers are ethnically Amazigh (or Berber), a group with a unique language and culture distinct from that of the Arabs. Unfortunately this group has faced a long history of marginalization that continues to this day.
The village has a total population of somewhere between 500 and 600 people living in 72 households. There are more women than men living in the village, as well as many children. The village is a part of the Ouirgane commune located in the Toubkal mountain range of El Haouz province in Marrakech. By road it is located 24 kilometers southwest of a small town called Asni and 70 kilometers south of Marrakech. The area is spectacularly beautiful; on clear days, there are incredible views in all directions. It is a mountainous area that reaches at its highest approximately 1800 meters above sea level. In the south of Toubkal are found a series of mountains by the names Ouakrim, Tamsoult, Imintgnisit and Tizi Timghart. In the east is found the mountain of Tizi in which four nearby villages are situated (Tehliouine, Taddart, Id Aissa and Aginan).
The village has little infrastructure; it is comprised of one hammam, two small grocery stores (hanuts), one truck, one van, and a mosque. In addition, limited infrastructure exists in terms of electricity, water, and roads. The government has virtually no presence in programs and services of the village. The local association, Todart, has 15 members and was established in 2003. The current president is Mr. Hussain Aitouflla, elected in 2011. The association collects a monthly tax for water from the villagers and uses that money to maintain the village’s infrastructure. 90% of villagers are farmers, the rest are goat herders. The villagers rely completely on their land to sustain themselves but experience many challenges as a result of the often unyielding land. The region is well known for its good quality apples, walnuts, plums, peaches, and cherries.
The majority of villagers speak only Tashlheet, with the few exceptions of some men who have travelled to the cities (Marrakech; Agadir, Casablanca) for work. According to the latest national statistics, illiteracy rates are as high as 90% in the region, which is due to the fact that schools are newly built in the nearby villages. The nearest school exists in a village called Ait Harb, which is a 40-minutes hike from the village. After primary school, students have to go to Asni or Ouirgane, where the nearest secondary school is located, to complete their education. In addition, when people have emergencies, it is difficult for them to find medicines or doctors. Finally, there is the issue of the lack of clean water, which creates a variety of health-related issues.
Project and Need Statement[2]
● The problem in the community of Tizi Zoughaght is that they do not have a preschool for the children who cannot go to elementary school yet. This cause a serious education issue for the children of the village. The villagers also don’t have a association in the community. This association would help the villagers to get together, find a place to meet and work and also where to organize events related to the association and the community. In addition, women in the village do not have access to development opportunities to build their capacities or to generate an income.Women bear the burden of doing all the housework, while the men go out work to cater for the need of the family. However, women would like to learn to do crafts and be productive. The solution that the community proposed is that they have a big piece of land, so they would like to build a multifunctional room that has 3 rooms. One where there will be a preschool with a teacher, one where there is a association, and the last room would be devoted for women’s cooperative. All the community children, men and women will greatly benefit from this space that will be a starting point to development work and capacity building in the village of Tizi Zoughghate. CAS Junior CorpsAfrica is working on designing this project with the support of CorpsAfrica alumni, CorpsAfrica/Maroc and HQ as well as the Casablanca American School opportunity. This proposal is seeking support and funding to raise money and provide resources to start this life-changing project.
The village of Tizi Zoughaghte faces serious education-related issues. Children, all Tamazight speakers, begin school in the first grade level and start learning in a language that is not their mother tongue (Arabic). Since most of the parents are uneducated, they do not provide their children with any educational base, so children enter primary school absolutely clueless about the very basic elements like alphabet, numbers, colors, etc. Early childhood education has shown to be a vital and crucial element in a child’s development, especially between birth and the age of six. The child needs a high-quality learning experience for the mental, physical and emotional growth during that particular time grows in an outstanding rate. After having discussed education problems with the village teachers, they have all agreed that the main problem the children face is the lack of a strong academic foundation at a preschool level where they are exposed to healthy play, education fundamentals and reading, in addition to issues regarding confidence and self-esteem. The children thus start school unprepared for the program that assumes the child knows the basics that are taught in preschool or by parents otherwise. Unless the children of Tizi Zoughaghte are paid special and close attention during higher grades by their teachers, they continue to climb the school ladder poorly through primary school, without really grasping the material. This ultimately causes the children to perform poorly in school and not continue on to secondary school. When unprepared children begin school behind, they tend to fall further and further behind.
The solution that the teachers, the principal and some of the parents have proposed is to build a separate classroom for pre-K and kindergarten education. We also discussed it with the village locals and the teachers, explaining the benefits and importance of early childhood education. Everyone agreed. The direct beneficiaries of the preschool will be the roughly 35 young children of the village. Providing preschool education will improve their school performance, improve their math and language abilities, sharpen their thinking skills and improve interactions with their peers, along with much more.
The other project idea that was discussed, particularly by women of the village, was to create a cooperative of rugs by the women. The cooperative will give women in the village a space to be productive and generate money. There are over 50 women in the village aged between 18 - 50 that are eager to start working together in a form of cooperative. There goal is not only to generate money by making rugs and carpets but to develop themselves, learn how to read and write as well as being a strong force in the dynamics of the community. That is what a multifunctional building will allow them to do. Gender disparity is particularly profound in rural areas like the village of Tizi Zoughaght, where the community is in an economic and educational disadvantage to their urban counterparts. Marginalization of women and girls is due to a range of causes: limited financial resources within households; the burden of household chores assigned to girls; the absence of education, communication, and transport infrastructure; and beliefs that prioritize educating males. There are also a number of girls who dropped out of school and they just spend their time at home doing chores and homework. Instead these women could benefit from a time to invest toward learning a new skill or gaining more knowledge and education. We interviewed one of the passionate women in the village and her name was Zine Aitalat 25 years old she left school in the fourth grade, and regret the decision of dropping out school later. Zineb told me that women want to learn how to read and write, and asked me about the possibility of starting an illiteracy class and a cooperative for women. Women here never had an opportunity to learn, all of them stop schooling in the elementary level to help their mothers in doing the household, taking care of the rest of the family or to get married. Despite the fact that some girls go to school, they must do the hard work of washing clothes, bringing wood from the forest, water from the reservoir or feeding animals. They don't have time to focus on their education or have someone who encourages them to carry on their education. Their level in Arabic is very poor and most of them only communicate in Tashlheet. No single girl so far makes it to the College (the next level after elementary school) and this due to many reasons firstly there is no college in the village and secondly families don't send their daughters to the nearest college and dormitory in Ouirgane or Asni (1h30 away) because they are intimidated and afraid about their security. The interesting fact is that women interact freely with men though there are some hidden limits, they can voice their opinion and are ready to engage in different activities. Girls want to play soccer and compete with boys, they want to excel in education and become future teachers and nurses. They are optimistic about the future and the change in villager’s mentality. Women's Cooperatives will enable autonomous income generation, create educational programming, give rural women the opportunity to solidify their pivotal role in socio economic sphere as well as the ability to dictate the terms of the community's development. This project will increase its Members' skills and create the basis for women and girls' participation in development and decision-making and will establish a rural value-added enterprise based on crafts to diversify the rural economy.
The project integrates solutions, and its goals are to: 1) empower 60 women directly, and 540 people indirectly, through the participatory approach; 2) train 60 women in value-added enterprises enabling them to have economic independence; 3) Reduce urban migration by employing people locally; 4) strengthen transparent procedures and create partnerships through the process of identifying and implementing new projects (economic, health, education, etc.) to promote human development
Thirdly, the local association is lacking a space where they can meet, have an office and organize their work. Currently they hold their meetings on the Mosque or in houses. This can be inconvenient sometimes to some villagers who wish if they have a separate space devoted for the association. The project’s idea is to build a room into the multifunctional room that can be allocated to the association. This space will not only be a local for the association but also will be a space for young people in the village in which they can come to read and use technology. The space will be provided with the necessary equipments; couple of computers, tables, chairs, blackboard, and a small bookcase with some children books.
Given the harsh fact that there is a high percentage of students drop out and repeat grades and test scores are very low grades in this rural region, this project will allow not only the students of the region to learn how to use the computer, but also these computers will be used as a teaching method and as another source of information. That of course will not only help in improving the standard of education here but it will also help the kids to see a world different than theirs, which will hopefully inspire them to study and work hard for a better future for themselves and for their community.
In addition to the educational benefits of this project, it will also solve another problem that both the local school and association suffer from. The students will not be the only beneficiaries of this project; the same room will be used as a meeting room for the teachers of the local school and for the locals themselves. It will be also used as a classroom for both men and women literacy classes, which will help in reducing illiteracy among local adults
Throughout the process of our commitment we will face different challenges. Before starting building our project, we will have to go through the bureaucratic process. Indeed getting the approval from the government will be an easy step seeing that the government wants such projects to take place in order to help with the country’s development. However, the issue lies in finding teachers for the pre-school through the ministry of education. This is mainly because teachers are not willing to work in areas like this village. This is mainly because the infrastructure challenges the teachers who are used to living a modern lifestyle back in their home cities. Our biggest challenge will be the lack of infrastructure in the village. Seeing that the village contains rocky roads and mountains, we will have to adjust the ways of transportation of the equipment. Moreover, the village does not have an internet network, something that will be crucial for the technological innovations we would like to implement ( computers, tablets etc) .
Keeping these challenges in mind, our team has put in place a set of strategic plans which will enable us to react to our conflicts accordingly.
Project Design[3][4]
● Action Plan – An in-depth narrative of the tasks that will need to be carried out
In order to undertake to carry out the project plans to Action the following activities will be taken, each with a specific time frame, some activities are taking place simultaneously in order to be more efficient :
- Contact more potential partners; these include sponsors, local and international non-governmental organizations,the ministry of education etc., and presenting to them our project idea ( June 2017- October 2017)
- Obtaining project approval from the government; putting together the different paperwork needed as well as consulting the specific political figures, like the mayor, regarding the project ( June 2017- October 2017)
- Coming up with a specific budget for the overall project, this will be done through analysing the different suppliers of our project needs while taking in consideration the supplier's’ price and quality offering. after ( October 2017- December 2017)
- Purchasing the different equipment needed for the project; bricks, cement, center equipment etc. ( January 2018)
- Seeing that the village’s laborers volunteered to build the school with the guidance of professional members from our partner, Journeyman International, we should not source the labor. Thus, we will give the different purchased products to the laborers who will start building the multifunctional building. Through conversing with the village laborers it has been estimated that the building will be built in a span of 6 months. Thus, the building will be inaugurated in summer 2018, in time for the 2018- 2019 school year.
Our project is very innovative and unique because everyone in the community is finding their needs within the center. Moreover, the building design itself is innovative since it will be eco-friendly and contain solar panels. Through our commitment, technology will be brought to a whole new village. This will be done through introducing a new pedagogy of learning based on interacting with new technologies like computers. Not to forget, that the preschool will be the first of its kind in the rural areas of Morocco. In terms of our women's cooperative, we plan to collaborate with an association known as EWA which aims to empower women through social entrepreneurship. Through this collaboration we will be able to arrange workshops which will connect the women of the village to entrepreneurs who can sell their handcrafts and rugs to national and international markets. Thus, the women will have a stable revenue stream.