Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Education

Parents Struggle to Advocate Education Rights for Autistic Children in Morocco

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Photo: Chama Bendaoud, 13, and her paraprofessional checking her math homework. Photo by Stella Shi.

As Moroccan government enforces new policy on education for autistic children, families are still struggling to access basic rights. 

By Stella Shi

Last updated December 2019

RABAT, Morocco — Aya Hajarabi’s curly hair is tied up in a bun with loose ends over her face. As her mother is talking to the psychiatrist, Aya observes them intently and repeatedly taps on her mom’s shoulder. Then she shouts the only word she knows: “Mama!” she screams in a piercing tone, hoping for attention.

Jewish schools in Morocco are alive and well—they’re just majority-Muslim

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Last updated February 2020

CASABLANCA, Morocco—Vanessa Mamane picks her way through a melee of toddlers in full recess mode in the courtyard of Narcisse Leven, the Jewish day school she directs in Casablanca. Once inside the relative quiet of her office, Mamane points to a poster on the wall with a collage of photos from last year’s reenactment of the Purim story. It would be the last school-wide Purim celebration at Narcisse Leven. Because of dwindling enrollment of Jewish families, this year is the first that the preschool has opened its doors to Muslim students.

A Scholar of Sexuality Feels “Alone in Morocco”

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by Erika Riley

RABAT, Morocco — At age 21, Dr. Abdessamad Dialmy was married, living in a villa with a dog. One day, after reading the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich’s “La Revolution Sexuelle,” he came home and told his wife he wanted a divorce.

“We were happy, really, as spouses. But I decided to divorce, because I wanted to be revolutionary, progressive,” Dialmy said.

Nowadays, Dialmy is considered to be the “Reich of Morocco,” a pioneer of the sociology of sexuality in a conservative country. Moroccan law specifies that sex outside of marriage is illegal, and the same goes for same sex relations.

Moroccan Science Students are Confused–Arabic, French or English?

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Story by Soukaina El Ouaai 

RABAT, Morocco – Ismail Chaabi, 18, is a first year biology student at Mohammed V University. The souvenir of getting his baccalaureate degree is still fresh and so is the disappointment of not studying elsewhere, because his French and English levels aren’t good enough.

Ismail didn’t choose to go to Mohammed V University, but he got rejected from every school he applied for because they require a good foreign languages level. And since he didn’t have any other choice, it was this, or staying home.

“I don’t feel like I belong here” he said, “Many students at my University don’t care about their studies, and don’t even attend courses.

Broken Promises: The fight to educate children with disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa

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by SARAH FORD; Photos by Emma Hohenstein.

This article was published by Global Health Hub on Oct. 8, 2015. Read it HERE.

RABAT, MOROCCO – Karim Benabdeslam, 24, plays the piano, taught himself how to read the Koran and is getting a masters degree in Islamic studies. Not one of these accomplishments came easily. Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of autism) at age three, it was up to Benabdeslam’s father to help his son achieve his utmost potential.

“I work hard with him to reach this level,” says Benabdeslam.

Morocco’s teachers battle urban-rural education divide

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by KIANNAH SEPEDA-MILLER; photos by JULIA BARSTOW

This article was published by Al Jazeera on Aug. 19, 2015. Read it HERE.

TAMASSINT, Morocco – Just outside a mountain town near Morocco’s coastal city of al-Hoceima, Aithmanan Primary School’s six small buildings, each painted in faded mint and cream, encircle a dirt courtyard.

Scrawled next to the entrance of one building is a quote from French author Victor Hugo: “Every child we educate is a man we gain.”

Here, Ahmed el-Allaoui, 35, teaches a class comprised of 28 students, ranging from third to sixth grade.

Another shore: Morocco’s child migrants

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by ZOE HU; photos by ELOISE SCHIEFERDECKER

This article was published in Al Jazeera on Jan. 30, 2015. Read it HERE.

Tangier, Morocco – Saber first decided that he wanted to live in Spain when he was 10 years old. Hoping for a better life on another shore, he began to think of migration and of leaving his family behind in Morocco.

Now 13, rosy-cheeked and rustling in a thin yellow windbreaker, he stands with his friends at a stone lookout nestled high in Tangier’s medina, watching the sprawling ferry port across the street.

Do Human Evolution and Islam Conflict in the Classroom?

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By SADIA KHATRI

This article was published on April 01, 2014 by Al Fanar Media, an online publication that covers higher education in the Arab world. It was presented there under an agreement with The Chronicle. 

Rabat, Morocco—Hanging outside of Professor Touria Benazzour’s office is a cut out of a magazine portrait of Charles Darwin.

Benazzour put it up when she began teaching human evolution 25 years ago, one of the first professors to introduce the sensitive and controversial topic in a Moroccan classroom. Today, Benazzour teaches in the Master’s degree program at Mohammad V University, the capital’s oldest higher-education public institution.

Challenging Illiteracy in Morocco, a Bookseller Pursues Paradise

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By Hannah Rehak

Photographs by Will Matsuda

RABAT, Morocco – Magazines spill out onto a busy street and blue painted shutters stretch open, exposing Aziz Muhammed sitting on a dusty pillow. As always, he is reading, eyes focused on an orange-bound book, spectacles resting on his prominent nose. Though tucked away behind the work of hundreds of authors, Muhammed is known throughout the medina, the oldest part of Rabat, for his unique aesthetic. He is a 66-year-old bouquiniste, a proud bookseller, in a country with an adult literacy rate of approximately 67 percent.

Snoopy, A Graduate From Morocco’s Only Circus School

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By VICTOR MASSARI

RABAT, Morocco – A tall man clutching a handbag filled with gold fractures of an old brass instrument enters downtown Rabat. His shaggy curls cascade from the back of his baseball cap as he reaches into his bag to pull out metal rings, a voice-looping machine, an iPad, an amplifer, and an endless line of cables. This is Rabat’s own local street performer, Badr “Snoopy” Houtar, 27.

“My mother always said I give life to objects,” said Houtar. “Where some people see just a plastic bag, I see a world of fun.”

Houtar, 27, stopped pursuing a degree in architecture four years ago to enroll in the only circus school in all of Morocco.

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