Taytmatine

The association now needs funding to complete the construction of the maternity ward, the first of its kind in the village, and to make it fully operational so that it can correctly accommodate women. The windows have not yet been installed and the openings have been sealed with tarpaulins. The municipality has agreed to provide all of the necessary medical equipment and medicines. However, the region where the maternity hospital is located is very remote, making it difficult to attract midwives. The MedWF’s grant was therefore used to train women from the village to become midwives. In this perspective, the Ministry of Health was contacted by the association to send these future midwives for training in Essaouira.

In Ait Qalla, a remote village lying in an impoverished hinterlands of northern Morocco, women and girls bore a triple burden in 2013. No girl was educated past primary school, the rate of child marriage was very high, and within the local economy, women failed to earn income from their production of saffron and carpets.
 
It was against this backdrop that the Taytmatines association was established. Its goals are to defend women's rights and guarantee their economic independence to liberate them. The MWF was able to get to know Taytmatines during a training session in Morocco thanks to the Ytto Foundation and its "Rights of Women and Girls Caravan".
 
In 2016, a Feminist Training in Collective Intelligence session in Kenitra for 20 young women, four of whom were from the village of Ait Qalla. Over the course of the program, these four young women came up with an idea for a project that was both traditional and innovative, and which became a reality. The idea was to organize an Amazigh (Berber) poetry festival with the rights of women and girls as the theme.

 
With financial support from the Mediterranean Women's Fund and in collaboration with the village of Air Ourir, the poetry festival took place in 2018. This made it possible to establish a space for discussion and free speech for the empowerment of women. Weaving and literacy workshops also were set up for village women.
 
Four years after the first of our three grants to the association, the situation in the region has improved considerably. Many young girls are educated and are returning to school, the rate of child marriage has been reduced and, by working in women's cooperatives, women are finally earning income from their products.
 
But above all, awareness of the rights of women and girls has been raised in their community. Men of the village are involved and aware, and the women who participated in the feminist training in collective intelligence program are daring to claim their rights.