Morocco

Academy for Educational Development (AED)

Functional Literacy for Women [Women, Education] – this program is providing up to $2 million to U.S. private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in literacy training in Morocco.  The funding assists the Government’s Secretariat for Literacy in developing literacy training materials that convey in a simple way the concepts of the family code.

CSSF

Girls Scholarship Program [Women] – Comite de Soutien a la Scolarisation des Filles (CSSF), or the Rural Girls’ Educational Support Committee, is supporting 100 girls financially for 3 years to see them through middle school. CSSF and Moroccan NGOs established five new homes to ensure that the girls have safe and culturally acceptable living quarters near their school. The program was extended to support another 100 girls in 2004.

Global Rights

Women's Legal Rights [Women, Democracy] – this program is training NGOs to educate Moroccan women on their legal rights and how to advocate for them, with a particular focus on the new family code, the Moudawana.  As of March 2005, more than 200 human rights education training seminars have been held for illiterate women throughout Morocco.  A women's human rights resource center was operating and expanding, with more than 1,450 multilingual, multimedia resources.  And a weekly e-newsletter "Wired for Women's Rights" was being distributed.

Helen Keller International

Increasing Women's Literacy [Women/Education] – This program increases an existing grant to Helen Keller International to expand its literacy training efforts. To date, Helen Keller International has provided literacy training to 20,000 women in the south of Morocco, benefiting the local economy through the hiring and training of unemployed college graduates as teachers, and by incorporating business skills into the literacy lessons. The MEPI funding is helping Helen Keller International expand its geographic reach to other under-served areas of Morocco.

Rabat Branch, Moroccan Women’s Forum

New Family Law (Moudawana) Explained through Theatre Play [Women] – in partnership with Theatre Aquarium, this program was designed as an innovative awareness campaign using theater to sensitize rural, urban, and working women and men about reforms to the Moudawana. The project reached hundreds of people in several parts of the country, as well as Moroccans living in Spain, providing better awareness of the new family code articles and helping to clarify misunderstandings of the code, which tend to cause tensions among family members.

World Learning

Moudawana Outreach Program [Women, Democracy] – The Moudawana project, implemented by World Learning, is designed to raise awareness among rural Moroccan women of their rights and responsibilities under the new family law (“Moudawana).  The project has public policy advocacy, outreach, and networking components and is designed to empower women by incorporating NGO networking strategies.