By Steven Sundstrom, Regional Grants Officer
This project began in 2019, when the Rotary Club of Casablanca El-Fida, Morocco, and District 9510 submitted a vocational training team application to improve rain-fed agricultural productivity in Morocco. This was based on a community assessment conducted by Rotarian Barry Mudge during a visit to Morocco in 2018, with the intention of bringing a team from Morocco to Australia in 2020.
The project was on track for approval in March 2020, however, the COVID pandemic obscured the outlook for everyone. The project contacts ultimately made the difficult decision to cancel the application at the end of 2020, but it was with great pleasure that I received a new application in early 2023.
This iteration set out to not only achieve the goals of their previous application, but they had continued communications throughout the intervening years, and revised the plan based on a new community assessment that also addressed climate change concerns in the project activities.
They also increased collaboration by following the team hosted in Australia with a two-person team to Morocco six months later to conduct follow-up and jointly conduct workshops to disseminate the results. I recently received their final report detailing the successful outcomes, including a total of 239 direct beneficiaries.
MAIN PICTURE: The vocational training program in Morocco was funded by a global grant from The Rotary Foundation, supplemented with District Designated Funds from Rotary District 9510 in South Australia (through the Rotary Club of Port Pirie) and contributions from The Rotary Club of Casablanca El Fida.