All over Morocco, in Dar Chababs, Nedi Neswis, and even the
streets of Rabat, Peace Corps Volunteers and Moroccans celebrated International Women’s
Day (IWD) on March 8th.
Volunteers participated in a wide variety of activities,
fairs, and parties to celebrate Moroccan women. The GAD committee developed a variety of toolkits for IWD including
toolkits on leadership, citizenship and volunteerism, women’s empowerment, and
harassment. Many PCVs were able to use
the toolkits and reported back exciting results!
Over the month of February, Tom and Jan Hunter centered
their English classes on themes important to women. All of their classes culminated into a
week-long IWD program focusing on women’s health, our GAD movie, and Moroccan
women leaders. Many women didn't even
know about the new female mayor of Marrakech, but they certainly knew about her after
their successful celebration.
The Association Oxygene Ouarzazate and Kathy Howell-Burke
organized a hugely successful day focusing on violence against women with over 130
people attending! She wrote about the
event: “The Director of the Association Oxygene Ouarzazate (with my assistance)
facilitated the screening of a 40-minute documentary titled "From Fear to
Freedom: Ending Violence Against Women" by the Women's Learning
Partnership. The video covered the various forms of violence, the negative
impacts, legal and moral support and resources available, and strategies and
partnerships to utilize in order to combat and end violence against women. All
of these topics were discussed during the periodic pauses in the video and the
guided discussion afterwards. What made this video and experience unique was
that the documentary presented violence against women as a "Global
Issue" not singling-out one country or culture. Also, the women attendees
were able to confidentially voice their experiences, concerns, and ideas on how
to proceed forward.”
To recognize IWD, Martha Fedorowicz hosted a two-day women’s
festival at her Dar Chabab with a female lawyer, a female doctor, and 86
motivated Moroccan women. The women were
able to ask the two professionals anonymous questions about their health and
legal rights. The festival also included
a panel of women speaking about artisanal works, a play on women’s empowerment,
a fashion show, an aerobic workout, and even fit in a party! Martha said that, “the women told me
afterward that they really appreciated having this opportunity and felt like
they learned a lot of new things that no one had told them before…
I think the women really appreciated having the opportunity to ask
questions anonymously from both a lawyer and a doctor.”
Michael Willis hosted an event on sexual harassment with 25
women using the GAD committee’s sexual harassment toolkit. After a skit about stopping harassment, the
women shared their own experiences with sexual harassment, and created a red
stop sign collage loudly proclaiming sexual harassment is unacceptable.
In Berkane, Krista Jorstad put together a leadership skills
conference for the women of her Nedi Neswi.
Krista and her counterpart “asked them to think about women leaders in
their own lives. Because of their age, most picked their mothers. We then did
an art activity to make letters for their moms thanking them for their hard
work.” The women then made some artwork
for their mothers and watched the “You Can Dream” video. Krista was especially impressed with what
happened afterwards: “At one point, several of the participants remarked that
Berkane has a lot of educational opportunities for women to improve themselves
and they would like to put what they have learned to use by giving back to the
community.”
Some volunteers found new counterparts through their IWD
events. After co-hosting a launch party for a new association, Carrie Thomson found she, “was impressed by how our new
contact was motivated to help her fellow women improve their lives.”
Other volunteers enabled women in their sites to be leaders
in their
community. Originally, Leslie
Dias planned on facilitating a discussion about sexual harassment using the
sexual harassment toolkit provided by the GAD committee. When Leslie shared her materials and
ambitions the head of the association she was working with said that she wanted
to facilitate the discussions on sexual harassment using the GAD toolkit and
her own material. Leslie then led an
art activity where women wrote about how they felt about sexual harassment and
created a chain against sexual harassment using their papers. Leslie writes, “They were all buzzing and
super excited when we finished. They said they hadn't done something that
productive with that many young girls in a very long time. We are hoping to re-create the event by doing
a one-day workshop once a month with a different theme each month. This
particular association was amazing, but it happened to coincide with a day the
Nedi Neswi was also holding an event, so hopefully the next one can be even
bigger and more inclusive!” Leslie’s
event was so successful it even made it into the local newspaper.
Over 45 volunteers hosted International Women’s Day events
in their sites. Hundreds of women and
men learned about health, leadership, harassment, and their rights. With this knowledge Moroccans can empower the
future female teachers, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and leaders to take
even bolder steps in future International Women’s Days.
