{"id":10938,"date":"2019-04-21T22:20:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T22:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/10938\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T14:57:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T14:57:17","slug":"kindergarten-becomes-moroccos-first-refugee-cooperative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/10938\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindergarten becomes Morocco\u2019s first refugee cooperative"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is home to the country\u2019s first refugee cooperative, a kindergarten called \u201cHope\u201d, run by a group of refugees from Yemen\u2019s three-year war.
\nInside, Moroccan and Yemeni children play in rooms decorated with cartoon characters and leaf-shaped signs showing the months of the year in Arabic and French. At pick-up time, refugee and local families chat with the kindergarten\u2019s Yemeni and Moroccan staff.
\n\u201cMy parents chose to enrol my little sister in this nursery school since the Yemeni cooperative teaches pupils classical Arabic from an early age,\u201d said a 16-year-old Moroccan girl, there to collect her sister. \u201cIn Moroccan kindergartens, they tend to speak Darija, our local dialect.\u201d
\nMorocco is home to about 7,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from more than 50 countries. More than 3,000 are Syrians, the largest group, followed by about 530 Yemenis who have sought refuge from the world\u2019s largest humanitarian crisis.
\nThe kingdom remains a country of transit for many, but in recent years it has become a destination for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
\nRecognizing this trend, the government, under the instructions of King Mohammed, adopted a new immigration and asylum policy in September 2013. This offered new protections for refugees in Morocco, providing access to public education, health services and the job market.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI thought \u2018why not start a project that would help all of us meet our needs for an occupation?\u2019\u201d<\/h4>\n

In 2016, the country introduced further changes allowing refugees to establish their own cooperatives which, according to a local partner of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, benefits refugees seeking sustainable livelihoods.
\n\u201cCooperatives are beneficial for refugees,\u201d said Oualid Chourak, programme manager at the Moroccan Association for Supporting the Promotion of Small Enterprises (Amappe). \u201cThe new law provides for tax exemption, which is a competitive advantage over other types of businesses. It also allows access to micro-credit schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The head of the Hope kindergarten cooperative is 45-year-old Abdullah, originally from Amran, northwest of the Yemeni capital, Sana\u2019a. He came to Morocco in early 2016 to study for a doctorate in economics and subsequently registered as a refugee when it became clear he would be unable to return safely to his homeland in the near future.
\nRealizing he needed a means of supporting himself, Abdullah approached some of his Yemeni friends in Kenitra with the idea of establishing a cooperative that would make use of their academic backgrounds.
\n\u201cI thought \u2018why not start a project that would help all of us meet our needs for an occupation, and linked with our speciality in education?\u2019,\u201d he said. After fulfilling the administrative requirements with the help of Amappe in April 2017, the Hope kindergarten opened its doors.
\nA total of 25 Moroccan and Yemeni children attend the kindergarten and, besides the eight Yemeni partners, it employs seven local staff as teachers, nursery assistants, administrative staff and a concierge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are full of hope and optimism.\u201d\"\"<\/h4>\n

\u201cOur school follows the Moroccan educational system, and we promote the values of honesty, transparency, kindness and respect for our employees,\u201d Abdullah said.
\nHe and his partners have plans eventually to expand the cooperative to include a primary and secondary school. \u201cWe are waiting for the authorization from the ministry of education,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also need more funds for educational tools such as computers.\u201d
\nTwo other refugee cooperatives are in the process of being established, as part of a joint project by UNHCR, Amappe, and the National Cooperation Development Office, under the ministry of crafts, aimed at helping refugees in Morocco become self-reliant, funded by Switzerland and Monaco.<\/p>\n

In the first, 10 Yemeni refugee women will open a restaurant specialising in traditional Yemeni cuisine, catering and events. Another, run by eight Yemeni refugees, will focus on poultry meat processing.
\nAbdullah says there are times when homesickness threatens to overwhelm him. \u201cI would like to go back as soon as Yemen becomes stable and at peace again.\u201d
\nUntil then, the cooperative offers the assurance that his time in exile will be well spent. \u201cWe are full of hope and optimism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Source: UNHCR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is home to the country\u2019s first refugee cooperative, a kindergarten called \u201cHope\u201d, run by a group of refugees from Yemen\u2019s three-year war. Inside, Moroccan and Yemeni children play in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10943,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938\/revisions\/10943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindsforcommunity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}