To our members,
Greetings from your BBA committee.
We hope that you, your families and friends are staying safe and healthy during these difficult times.
As it is impossible to hold a members meeting during the current lockdown we have decided to send out a newsletter with an update on what we have been doing on your behalf and the current situation with regards to the BBA’s activities.
Charitable Works:
La Maison Espoir
We have spoken to Touria, the manageress of La Maison Espoir. She says that the house and children are well but are in total lockdown with no one going in or out. They have a team of live in carers and nurses to look after the children and have good supplies of food and other essentials.
They do not need any special help, financial or otherwise, from us as they are being supported by the Moroccan Government Covid-19 fund.
As La Maison Espoir is in total lockdown and the physiotherapist, Ahmed El Meskine, is unable to continue his work with the children he has agreed that we suspend his monthly payments until such time as the restrictions are lifted and he can return to work.
EFA Morocco
While the girls are all back in their villages with the closing of schools the house mothers continue to make contact with them and have helped to arrange them into small virtual study groups to support each other in their classwork.
EFA is also hosting a small fund raiser on Just Give to help girls maintain connectivity so they can continue their school work.
For more information see the following link: GetEFAGirlsOnlineDuringCovid-19
UK Embassy Covid-19 Fund
You may know that the British Embassy has opened a special bank account to receive donations from the British Expat community in support of the Moroccan Covid-19 fund.
We have donated 20 000 DH from the BBA charity account to this fund on your behalf. If you would like to donate individually these are the details:
AMBASSADE DE GRAND BRETAGNE COVID-19
No Compte: 011.810.0000.03.200.00.39759.69
BMCE Bank Of Africa Agence Rabat Souissi
2 Avenue Imam Malik
10105 Rabat
If you make a donation you should send an email to this address: BN.COVID19@fco.gov.uk This way the embassy will be able to keep accounts of donations and also send you a receipt if you wish.
Once a reasonable amount has been raised, the Ambassador will issue a press release and donate the entire sum to the Official Moroccan Covid-19 on behalf of the British community in Morocco.
Community Initiatives
If you are looking for something that you can do in partnership with your neighbors, we have found this Morocco World News story very inspirational and provides an easy to replicate model.
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/04/298489/moroccan-generosity-shines-through-in-covid-19-lockdown/
Doing this would hopefully create a great deal of goodwill in your local area.
The basic model is that a group of neighbours club together with their local hanout and work out a basic food package for the poorest families in their neighborhood. Above is the list of foodstuffs used by the group in Essaouira and they have a budget of 150DH. The food package can be adapted to what is available and what you can afford per family. The package should cost no more than 100 – 150 DH.
You then work out how many of these you can supply per week with whatever budget you have available. If you are a maison d’hôte you can perhaps ask clients abroad to donate small amounts to an online fund such as PayPal. For example if you work out that you can sustain doing 10 packages a week for 1000 – 1500 DH then you will be helping to feed the 10 poorest families in your area. The Essaouira group provide 40 food packages a week.
With the help of the hanout owner, neighbours and even your Mouqadam you identify the families in most need in your area and arrange for them to collect their food package on a specific day at staggered times so that they can keep their social distancing.
The packages can be collected from a designated house or even the hanout.
The hanout owner can use the list and his budget to order in the supplies and provide the food items at a reduced price as the group would be buying these in bulk.
BBA Website:
Khalid Skiod, the website designer, continues to work on the new BBA website and it should go live as scheduled at the beginning of next month. We will keep you informed and alert you all once the website is online.
Scheduled Events:
Unfortunately because of a lack of certainty over the time line of the lock down restrictions it is difficult to plan any of our scheduled events.
Once we do have a proposed date of when social gatherings will be permitted we will be able to plan and communicate a calendar of events.
At the moment it is still envisaged that the English Book Fair, scheduled for 27-29th November will go ahead as planned.
Our best regards to you all.
BBA Committee