Volunteer with an education charity in the Atlas Mountains

"If you educate a girl you educate the next generation as well"

This project is working with a charity that sets up and runs girls’ boarding houses near secondary colleges and lycées in the High Atlas Mountains, enabling selected girls from villages across the region to continue their education. Through the project's provision of boarding houses, girls gain access to a secondary education and the opportunity to reach their potential in an environment that encourages academic study and social understanding.

The aim is to make a difference to the lives of these girls now, and thus change many more in the future. Volunteers will be welcomed with any of the following skills and experience:

• The girls have a real need to develop English skills - composition and comprehension
• English teachers
• French teachers
• TEFL / EFL / TESL experience would be especially welcome
• Teachers in all subjects who could work with 11-18 year olds in small groups
• Computer skills
• Life skills - particularly mentoring and supporting the girls in their studies and preparation for leaving school

The boarding houses offer more than just a place to stay! The girls are exposed to activities and experiences to support and enrich their education, beyond what they learn at school.

The aim is to help the girls to reach their potential - whether they choose to return to their villages, to continue with further education, or enter employment. Very few girls from rural communities in Morocco continue their education after primary school. The secondary colleges are at too great a distance from the villages for the girls to travel to every day. Their parents are too poor to afford lodgings near to the colleges, and available accommodation is usually over stretched and inadequate. Parents do not have the confidence in any of the facilities to entrust their daughters to be away from their rural communities.

Morocco is a country in transition and with an increasing proportion of youth. Literacy rates have improved in the past few years, but remain very low for women, at 38 per cent.(UNICEF) The High Atlas has some of the most beautiful regions of Morocco. These mountains are the highest in the area, with Toubkal measuring 4165 metres above sea level. The High Atlas villages are Berber, where hospitality and warm friendliness are deeply-rooted in the culture. For the girls supported by the project, these are their home villages and culture.