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Friday, April 25, 2014

BRO camp an amazing success!

Imagine thirty bros.

Are you picturing thirty 20-somethings wearing button downs, pastel-colored shorts, and sunglasses with straps on them blasting 90’s pop anthems?

If you are, then you couldn’t be much further from Morocco’s first BRO (Boys Respecting Others) camp.

Thirty campers and ten counselors from eight different towns in the Tadla-Azilal province arrived at the Dar Talib in El Ksiba on February 23rd for a weeklong sleepaway camp for boys. Inspired by Peace Corps’ many successful GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camps, BRO camp was created to make better boys with a better future for a better Morocco.

Some of you may wonder: Why did you make a camp for boys? Don’t boys have many privileges in Morocco? After all, boys attend school more than girls; boys have more jobs than girls, and, in many families, are held in higher favor.

While it is fair to note that boys do hold many privileges in Moroccan culture, boys also shoulder many of the country’s burdens. Youth face many pressures from society and family that are challenging to overcome. A 2012 World Bank study reported that, “…young men are expected to contribute money at home, and to save enough to start their own family. With the severe lack of opportunities they are capable of neither, and this failure has resulted in them becoming alienated within their own families. The psychological pressure that the young men face is huge. It’s not a coincidence that, for the poorer ones, the coping mechanism is to use drugs and to drift in inactivity.”[1] Walking down the street and seeing dropouts lounge at the café and boys smoking hash in the alley made it very clear to me the importance of an early and powerful impact on our boys.

Peace Corps volunteers and our Moroccan association developed an ambitious and comprehensive curriculum to empower our campers to rise above their challenges and thrive in their homes, schools and communities. At BRO camp, boys learned about health, preparing for work, gender and society, teamwork and leadership, and community service over 18 classes, 8 activities, 5 guest speakers, one community service fair and clean-up project, and the Building a Better Morocco Competition.  Mornings started with classes that varied from drug awareness, to expectation versus the reality of male Moroccans, to community organizing. Guest speakers arrived in the afternoon and spoke about the themes of the day. One amazing moment was when Peace Corps’ Fatima Akbeli and Samira Idoue Laouina fostered a lengthy discussion with the boys about the challenges women face in gaining employment.

Later that day, the students harnessed what they learned in class in their afternoon competitions about being honorable men and sexual harassment. Boys stepped into their sisters’ shoes (and out of their comfort zones!) when producing skits depicting sexual harassment, the issues of sexual harassment, and ways to prevent sexual harassment from happening. Students started thinking about stale and indoctrinated opinions in new, dynamic, and empathetic ways.

At dusk campers would gather in teams to prepare for the Building a Better Morocco Competition at the end of the week. Teams had to identify a problem in their community, research it, come up with a youth based solution, and present their findings to a group of judges. What our bros came up with blew everyone away. Boys passionately and thoughtfully articulated innovative ideas about new transportation options for young women far from schools, employment training for new professionals, and tutoring and mentoring services for youth from youth. But that wasn’t even close to the most amazing thing about our camp.

To see the most awesome part of our camp, you would have to wait until it was all over. Everyone transformed. Boys who were once shy became impassioned orators. Boys who were troublemakers became moral compasses. Boys who didn’t have a direction, created five year plans. Boys who once sexually harassed women spoke out vehemently against it.  Boys took what they learned at BRO camp and brought it to their villages. In Ouaouizeght, two bros taught three lessons from BRO camp to sixty girls and boys. In Foum El Anser, boys are organizing new clubs and activities in the Dar Chebab. Boys became Morocco’s best bros.

And these boys transformed me. My experience with these boys reinvigorated my service and has made me excited to expand our BRO camp to other villages, new associations, and more boys in my third year of service.  Because of BRO camp there are 30 more bros in Beni Mellal. We could use a few more bros.



[1] http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/14/challenge-of-youth-inclusion-in-morocco