News from the High Atlas Foundation

The following items were taken from the High Atlas Foundation’s newsletter.

The 2009-2010 planting season is fast approaching, and you can join HAF and our partners in planting a community tree nursery of 60,000 fruit tree saplings! Twenty villages neighboring Toubkal National Park, in the Rural Communes of Ourika, Oukaimden, and Asni, will participate in this project. The Regional Direction of Waters and Forests-Marrakech has contributed land to build the nursery. In four to six years the household income of 500 families will at least double through the sale of the fruit at local markets. Our current project partners - G4S, Green Sahara Furniture, Morocco Exchange, and Chronopost International - have already committed the funding to plant 20,000 saplings, and you can help us plant the remaining 40,000! Just $1 plants one sapling, and includes technical training workshops in fruit tree agriculture, care and maintenance of the nursery for two years, and all associated costs.
Download the concept paper to learn more about the project and our partners (PDF)

HAF has partnered with G4S (Morocco), the world’s leading international securities group, to combat rural poverty and highlight awareness for dislocation of Morocco’s rural populations due to challenging socio-economic conditions. This NGO-corporate partnership will bring clean drinking water to five villages in southern Morocco, and contribute funds to plant 15,000 saplings in a community nursery that will be planted with rural communities neighboring Toubkal National Park in early 2010. The partnership will profoundly benefit over 3,500 rural people.
Learn more about this partnership

“A penny can make a difference” was the motto for sixty-five students in the Fairfax County School Age Child Care (SACC) after school program at Shrevewood Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. The children, ages six to eleven, raised $200 through grassroots fundraising efforts and secured a $200 matching grant from the Fannie Mae SERVE Program to plant 400 fruit tree saplings in a community tree nursery. Using HAF’s recently launched Teacher Toolkit, students learned about Moroccan history, culture, and geography, and on Earth Day, April 22nd, planted a “sister tree” on their school grounds to show solidarity for the ones that will be planted in Morocco.
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