MY MOROCCO FUNDRAISING PROJECT – A 500km trek into Ténéré
Walk with me on my personal journey through the Moroccan Sahara Desert
I am an African and my aim is to trek +- 500km through the Moroccan Sahara Desert to raise funds to educate Moroccan village girls. My journey will take +- a month to complete. I am in the preparation phase now and plan to start my desert journey on 1 February 2023.
I have chosen EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) as my fundraiser project.
I am no stranger to Morocco and have toured this wonderful country many times. During 2020 I volunteered as an English teacher at Education for All. The time I spent with these village girls in the Tinmel House in Talat n’Yaboub, a tiny village very far from everything, very remote and high up in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, I’ll never forget. This volunteer period had a profound impact on me – the girls love, their dedication to their studies, their respect for their fellow sisters and for the personnel, their willingness to sacrifice family life for the privilege to be able to study, will always inspire me. Since covid-19 put the world on hold, I have wanted to return, but this time with a different idea in mind. I don’t just want to travel Morocco; I want to return to the desert I love so much. I want to go to Morocco with a clear goal in mind, to do something that will satisfy my restless and adventures soul, and at the same time to give something back to this wonderful country and her people, and in particular to Education for All, who so generously supported me during and cared for me during my lockdown period in Morocco.
Being mindful of the challenges the Education for All foundation has to deal with and the cost involved to keep each girl in school, I came up with the idea of combining my intended extreme adventure desert trek that I’ve always wanted to do, with a fund-raising campaign. Not only do I want to raise funds for EFA, I want to do something worthwhile to earn each donation. In addition, I am also hoping to be able to get some sponsorship towards my own costs that I will have to pay to be able to do the walk. But I didn’t just want to walk. After my trek is finished, my plans are to visit each of the 6 EFA houses to give an interactive motivational talk to the girls, share my desert walk experience with them and my reasons for doing so. Through this I hope to inspire these girls to always reach for the stars, that dreams are achievable if you believe in them, to never ever give up on what you want from life and to emphasise that through sheer determination and a will to succeed, anything is possible and indeed they have a bright future to look forward to.
