Blogs
HAF will host its fifth annual New
York City reception – a Moroccan hefla – on the evening of Friday, November 6th (7pm-10pm) at the American Institute of Architects New York. Approximately 150 guests, including Moroccan expatriates, returned Peace Corps Volunteers, politicians, business leaders, and academicians, will take part in the evening’s festivities that include Moroccan hors d’oeuvres, a traditional tea pouring ceremony,
henna artists, and music.
The event will raise funds for fruit tree planting with rural Moroccan communities, including 20,000 walnut and cherry tree saplings for the Kate Jeans-Gail Tree Nursery Memorial. Since 2003, HAF has planted nearly 150,000 fruit trees, benefitting 20,000 rural people, with the goal of planting one million trees throughout Morocco. Download the project description to learn more.
Individual tickets are being sold for $100, $75, and $50 – $1 plants one sapling in a community tree nursery. Puchase tickets online today!
Communique de presse (Francais)
Mabrouk Ramadan from all of us at the High Atlas Foundation!
You are invited to join HAF Board members, supporters, and friends for Ramadan ftoor during the month of September. The cost includes a donation to HAF to support its One Million Tree campaign (cash and checks please). More information about HAF’s newest project – a nursery of 60,000 fruit tree saplings – will be available at the events.
Please RSVP to Nora: nora@highatlasfoundation.org
Traditional Moroccan Ftoor
Date: Wednesday, September 16th
Time: 7:00pm (break-fast 7:03pm)
Where: Tagine Dining Gallery, 537 9th Avenue @ 40th Street
Cost: $25
HAF’s project to bring clean drinking water to Moroccan villages is featured as part of GlobalGiving’s Ramadan Giving Campaign.
Please consider making a life changing gift to help 1,600 people in five villages in southern Morocco have access to safe drinking water. Just $15 provides clean drinking water for one person and $150 for an entire family. And, thanks to our generous supporters, we've already raised over $15,000 of the $25,000 project goal! Your gift will help us get that much closer to completing the project.
Learn more about the project, read updates from the field, and make a secure online donation
From all of us at the High Atlas Foundation, Mabrouk Ramadan!
Media coverage of GlobalGiving's Ramadan Giving Campaign:
• USA Today: As Ramadan nears, Muslims plan to donate
• Washington Post: Organizations Help American Muslims with Ramadan Giving
• Albany (NY) Times Union: Ramadan, a time for giving…to the right charities
• Philanthropy News Digest: A New Era of Muslim-American Philanthropy Requires Fewer Obstacles to Giving (commentary by GlobalGiving Program Officer Saima Zaman)
HAF is excited to welcome Rabia El Alama, Managing Director for the American Chamber of Commerce in Morocco, to the Board of Directors! With twenty years of experience in project management, entrepreneurship, and international business, Rabia is looking forward to working with HAF to build its corporate giving program, helping to develop creative ways to engage corporations in philanthropy. A true public servant in Morocco, Rabia actively contributes through her volunteer activities to the empowerment of women, women’s access to healthcare, access to education for rural girls, and the reduction of poverty. Read more about Rabia and HAF’s other members of the Board of Directors.
With a combined seventy-five years of assisting development projects in Morocco, HAF’s eighteen member international board of directors is committed to responding to the priority development projects of local communities. Founded in 2000 by a small group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers wanting to continue to make a difference in their country of service, today 56 percent of HAF’s board members make their ties to Morocco outside of the Peace Corps.
Board of Directors by the numbers:
18 Board members
12 reside in the US, calling home NYC, DC, and Boston
9 women and 9 men
8 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, with services spanning between 1968 and 2005
7 Moroccans, residing in both the US and Morocco
6 call Morocco home, including the President, both Vice Presidents, and Country Director
2 Fulbright Grantees to Morocco
1 recipient of the Knight of the Order of National Merit presented by H.M. King Mohammed VI
Bios of the Board of Directors
“A penny can make a difference” was the motto for sixty-five students in the Fairfax County School Age Child Care (SACC) after school program at Shrevewood Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. The children, ages six to eleven, raised $200 through grassroots fundraising efforts and secured a $200 matching grant from a corporate sponsor, to plant 400 fruit tree saplings in a High Atlas Foundation tree nursery.
Using HAF’s newly launched Teacher Toolkit as a springboard, for one month, the students learned about Morocco’s culture, history, and geography, and connected their newfound knowledge to the more global concepts of volunteerism and environmental awareness. In fact, the overarching theme for the after school program during the 2008-2009 school year focused on volunteerism and giving back to communities in need – whether they be local, national, or international.
With the belief that everyone should have the opportunity to help make a difference, the students focused on collecting only pennies, and totaled an impressive $90 worth by the end of the project (that is 9,000 pennies!). They also held a bake sale at their school that generated an additional $90 in funds.
On Earth Day, April 22nd, they planted a tree on their school grounds – a “sister tree” fruit tree for the ones that will be planted in Morocco later this fall when the planting season begins.
We are incredibly proud of the success of this pilot program, and hope it inspires other educators to use HAF’s Teacher Toolkit in their classrooms. A penny can make a difference, and 40,000 pennies can make a difference for eight Moroccan families whose household incomes will at least double when they sell fruit from their new trees at the local markets – thank you!
A special thank you to all the children and teachers in the SACC after school program at Shrevewood Elementary School, particularly Tori Brent, and to Resource Council member, Tina Khartami, whose leadership helped to make this pilot program a resounding success.
