Friends of Morocco Annual Report for 1999



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Friends of Morocco Annual Report for 2011

Friends of Morocco goals are 1) uniting Americans with a connection to Morocco, Moroccans in America and Americans of Moroccan ancestry; 2) informing Americans about the culture, needs and achievements of Morocco, Moroccans, Islam and the Arab and Berber worlds; 3) keeping members and others current on events in Morocco; and 4) supporting projects of the U.S. Peace Corps and private charitable organizations in Morocco.

Friends of Morocco is, in essence, electronic information sharing, a solid web presence, an RPCV/Morocco and member database, meetings associated with the NPCA and other relevant institutions, and a suite of local and year of service gatherings. We also support home hospitality for Moroccans in America, charity dinners, school and community group lectures, responses to queries, and coordination with other groups sharing FOM objectives.

Major activities in 2011 included:

[pic]      Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration- Global House Parties: Friends of Morocco and its members were active participants in the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration NPCA led the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps by organizing large-scale events through the year, beginning with Global House Parties around the world on March 1, 2011. Friends of Morocco members hosted 7 of the nearly 800 parties held in all 50 states and approximately 80 countries over the world.

[pic]   Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration- John F. Kennedy Service Awards In commemoration of Peace Corps' 50th anniversary year, Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams (RPCV/Dominican Republic, 1967-1970) and Caroline Kennedy presented the 2011 John F. Kennedy Service Awards at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on March 5, 2011. Peace Corps Volunteers Chris Fontanesi (Romania ) and Robert Ferguson (Mexico), Peace Corps staff members Frances Asturias (headquarters and Guatemala) and Mostafa Lamqaddam (Morocco), and returned Peace Corps Volunteers Kathryn Clark (Sierra Leone,1968-1969; Jamaica, 1984-1987) and Joseph Carroll Jaycox (Venezuela, 1962-1964) were honored.

Mostafa Lamqaddam left his position as head of the Rural Water and Sanitation Unit in Morocco's Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) in 1992 to join the staff of Peace Corps/Morocco. Since then, he has coordinated the Peace Corps health program in Morocco and currently works as program manager of the health sector and as HIV/AIDS initiative coordinator. Lamqaddam was instrumental in developing the Maternal and Child Health project, as well as the current Rural Community Health project. In 2006, he initiated the cross-sector HIV/AIDS task force of Peace Corps/Morocco and continues to help Volunteers and staff integrate HIV/AIDS awareness into their activities.

[pic]      Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration- Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Morocco was one of 16 countries selected to participate and was represented by two weavers Khadija Ighilnassaf of Association Tifaouin -Anzal in Anzal and Fatima Akachmar of Cooperative Adwal in Ribat El Kheir and serving Peace Corps Small Business Development volunteer, Anna Herman from Agouim.  The weavers also did cooking demonstrations. The Morocco RPCVs reunion on the Mall was Sunday July 3 with subsequent meal including the Moroccan Festival participants at the Marrakesh Palace restaurant.

[pic]      Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration- September Events: Friends of Morocco members participated in many events as a group (Service Day, Gala, March, Closing Ceremony) but also organized parallel restaurant gatherings on Friday evening at the Casablanca restaurant in Alexandria, VA and on Saturday afternoon at the Bistro Bistro French restaurant.

[pic]      Soccer balls to Morocco: Upon COSing Candace Spradley, who continued to work with a Girls Ouarzazate Regional Football Team, applied for and received a 12 ball donation from Love Futbol, an organization that makes, sells, and donates indestructible soccer balls ideal for non-traditional field use.  They shipped the balls from California to DC, but are not able to ship internationally. Friends of Morocco provided funds for the onward shipping. The team is comprised of 25 young women ages 13 to 25 all of whom either study in the formal education system, vocational schools, or work. The team trains several times a week, participates in and plans intramural football matches for teams in the region, and are working on paperwork to become a registered Neddi with the local Ministry office.

[pic]   PC Morocco Reunion (83-88) Friday, July 22-24 in Chicago, IL

The focus of this reunion is volunteers starting service 83-88 but all Morocco RPCVs were invited.  Activities were a free concert at Millennium Park on Friday night. Saturday night a dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, the Al Hambra Palace.

[pic]      FOM Web Site: The site provides basic FOM information including purpose statement, contacts, and a membership application. The substantial content includes the Peace Corps language course on Moroccan dialectical Arabic, Tamazight Dictionary

Tamazight - English and English – Tamazight, an exhaustive bibliography on historical Morocco in English, access to over 650 recipes as well as the PC/Morocco 2007 cookbook for volunteers, directory of films set in Morocco, directory of Moroccan restaurants throughout the US, Moroccan travel information, a Yellow Pages directory, and access to an extensive Moroccan music library and Moroccan radio stations. The site averaged about 500 visits per day in 2011 (See Annex 1). There are also several “year of service” listserves, newsletters and web sites maintained by FOM members all linked from the FOM site.

[pic]    Teaching about Islam and the Arab World: The third goal of Peace Corps “To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans” is especially important for returned Peace Corps volunteers who served in Morocco. We understand the diversity of the world, Islam and the Arab world. We share that understanding with our friends, neighbors and the general public. Members were alerted to the resource and urged to be proactive in helping American understand Islam and the Arab world. For information about teaching about Islam and the Arab world see .

[pic]      Newsletter: The Friends of Morocco did not produce any hard copy Newsletters in 2010. Past Newsletters are available for download on the FOM web site as PDF files. A monthly FOM electronic newsletter is posted to the FOM site including references to relevant articles on the web as well as the weekly “News in Review”. The FOM weekly “News in Review” is compiled with the support of Mhamed El Kadi, the Peace Corps/Morocco librarian, who produces the listings for the PCVs serving in Morocco with Internet access. Several email blasts are sent annually generally focused on a specific geographic area but also a couple nationally.

[pic]      Membership Database: Over 4500 people have served in the Peace Corps in Morocco over the last 50 years. Friends of Morocco maintains database with the names of about 3300 persons, most of whom were Peace Corps volunteers in Morocco, the remainder of whom are Americans with experience in Morocco and Moroccans in America. FOM has valid mailing addresses for about 2350 and valid email for 1100 persons. In 2011, the database was used for reconnecting volunteers, supporting year of service reunions, announcing local events such as film festivals, commercial concerts, cooking classes, and lectures and responding to assistance inquires.

[pic]    Coordination with Other Groups: Friends of Morocco worked in 2011 with several other groups who share FOM’s objectives. Support has included articles in our newsletter, links from our web site, announcements to our members, and notice in our web-based events calendar. The groups included:

[pic]    The Washington Moroccan-American Club exists to strengthen relations between all members of the Moroccan American community within the united States; to enhance mutual understanding with other communities and the society at large and to promote fellowship, harmony and rapport, not only among people of the Moroccan-American community. They organize social, cultural, and sport events towards the promotion of our Moroccan cultural heritage; represent our cultural heritage in society through participation in local and regional events and coordinate activities and cooperate with other groups and other organizations in the area.

[pic]    The High Atlas Foundation formed by Morocco RPCVs. HAF is a 501c3 non-profit whose aim is to establish community-based projects in Morocco that local people design in partnership with government and non-government agencies. HAF was created by Peace Corps volunteers and staff who served in Morocco. Its founders utilize their professional relationships, friendships and knowledge gained during their years of Peace Corps service for the continued benefit of the Moroccan people. High Atlas Foundation (HAF) held receptions (Eat, Drink, Share) in NYC and Washington, DC learn more about HAF's activities, catch up with old friends, and meet others interested in Morocco. In October 2011, HAF organized its second Moroccan Film Festival in the U.S. in NYC, which was attended by FOM members.

[pic]    The Tangier American Legation Museum Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM) of Tangier, Morocco is the only historic landmark of the United States located abroad and is now operating as a museum and cultural center. The Legation served as a Peace Corps Language Center in the early 1970s.

[pic]    The Maghreb Center is an independent Washington DC based non-profit dedicated to understanding and analyzing the political, economic, and social climate in the five countries of North Africa that are also known as the Maghreb: Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. The center disseminates this information amongst policy-makers, academics, the media, and the American public at large.

[pic]    Arabian Sights Film Festival of Washington, D.C. in 2011 including one film showing Rough Hands. Mustapha (played by comic Mohamed Bastaoui) is Casablanca's barber to retired high-ranking government officials, former cabinet ministers and power brokers. Using his access to the retired bigwigs, Mustapha also runs an underground business greasing the wheels of bureaucracy. He agrees to help his schoolteacher neighbor, Zakia (Houda Rihana), forge papers to immigrate to Spain and reunite with her fiancé for whom she longs, but cannot get an official visa to visit. While his two business operations thrive and he cares for his blind, but spry mother, Mustapha keeps a shameful secret: he is illiterate.

[pic]    Jews in Morocco. Rick Gold has put together a fascinating website on Morocco’s Jewish population. The site explores the role, history and emigration of Moroccan Jews. It provides a guide to cities and towns throughout the country that once had a significant Jewish presence. For teachers of 3rd and 6th graders, it contains teaching guides. It also provides such resources as community contacts, a description of the Jewish museum and foundation in Casablanca, an extensive bibliography and weblinks.

[pic]    and @MorocOnTheMove are initiatives of the Moroccan American Center, a group of three NGOs – The Moroccan American Center for Policy, The Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center, and The Moroccan American Cultural Center – which work to promote relations and mutual understanding between the United States and Morocco.

The Moroccan American Center for Policy(MACP)

The Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center (MATIC)

The Moroccan American Cultural Center (MACC)

Moroccan American Center Internship Program

[pic]    The Middle East Institute

[pic]    American Moroccan Institute

[pic]    Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East Program

[pic]    Association of Moroccan Professionals in America

[pic]    The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Annex 1

Usage Statistics for

Summary Period: Last 12 Months

Generated 18-Mar-2012 05:41 PDT

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|Summary by Month |

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|Hits |Files |Pages |Visits |Sites |KBytes |Visits |Pages |Files |Hits | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Mar 2012 |3683 |2230 |1283 |616 |7888 |6490880 |11103 |23102 |40146 |66304 | |Feb 2012 |3836 |2534 |1352 |664 |13107 |18011977 |19270 |39228 |73509 |111265 | |Jan 2012 |3653 |2552 |1389 |634 |13208 |13180266 |19680 |43075 |79115 |113252 | |Dec 2011 |3276 |2215 |1211 |618 |12154 |11527979 |19166 |37555 |68693 |101574 | |Nov 2011 |3242 |2096 |1180 |582 |11372 |11557338 |17464 |35410 |62896 |97283 | |Oct 2011 |3169 |2197 |1337 |529 |10703 |11743319 |16406 |41467 |68123 |98242 | |Sep 2011 |3538 |2521 |1463 |554 |10053 |9930910 |16635 |43902 |75636 |106163 | |Aug 2011 |3338 |2231 |1451 |500 |9647 |8526955 |15527 |44998 |69187 |103499 | |Jul 2011 |2991 |2016 |1374 |522 |8865 |8026781 |16199 |42603 |62509 |92747 | |Jun 2011 |2935 |1959 |1246 |484 |8791 |6902198 |14535 |37396 |58771 |88055 | |May 2011 |3539 |2334 |1574 |535 |10294 |7381624 |16598 |48797 |72369 |109731 | |Apr 2011 |3716 |2149 |1353 |507 |9954 |7508025 |15214 |40617 |64476 |111492 | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Totals |120788252 |197797 |478150 |795430 |1199607 | | | | | | | | | | | | | |[pic]

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