After an initial invitation, many of our sustainable development projects start with a community IMAGINE workshop. These workshops empower women to imagine the life they want for themselves. We support their efforts to participate, contribute, and advocate for themselves and their local community through economic and social activities.
Our IMAGINE workshops encourage and equip women to have emotionally healthy discussions that expand their confidence and self-agency while identifying personal goals and priorities.
We ask women, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to imagine the life they want to create for themselves. These workshops, led by highly trained facilitators, provide a clear pathway for women to grow as leaders of their communities.
The workshops aim to empower women in seven key areas: emotions, relationships, sexuality, body, money, work, and spirituality. In addition to gaining greater awareness of themselves, their dreams, and their rights, women also learn about tools and resources that can assist them in pursuing their personal and communal goals.
The workshops also seek to empower women through increasing awareness of the Moudawana Family Code and inviting them to become agents of social change. The Moroccan Family Code (Moudawana) is a set of laws issued in 2004 that provide legal regulation for family-related concerns.
More than 94% of the women who participated in research we conducted indicated that they had never heard of Moudawana or their rights associated with it, particularly in rural areas. Incorporating a rights-based approach, IMAGINE brings women together to learn about legal protections and to determine ways to further social justice in their individual contexts.
Many women who attend IMAGINE workshops emerge with a transformed outlook on their lives. Although not all women have the personal goal of earning income outside the home, many women go on to form successful cooperatives, earning income, using and expanding skills, and enjoying the time spent working in community.
Here’s what IMAGINE looks like by the numbers.
“Almost all the tools used in the IMAGINE workshop are new for the women in the communities that I serve. I find that asking questions, the central premise of the empowerment pedagogy, builds the self confidence of the women. Rather than me giving them answers, which they often want, I almost always respond to their inquiries by asking them a question so that they begin to trust their own inner wisdom. And the questions also play an important role in my understanding of the women’s ideas and their ways of thinking.
When I facilitate the workshop with devout Muslim communities the women especially enjoy the guided meditations. Meditation is an integral part of Islam, believed to open the door of revelation and to be an essential aspect of spiritual development. But it’s the tool of guided visualization that is truly remarkable for the women that the High Atlas Foundation serves. Because this tool relies on the ability to imagine or visualize, the women in the IMAGINE empowerment workshop realize that their imagination is just as important as knowledge.
Many of the women I serve have little formal education, which they associate with knowledge. But their imagination is unlimited! Through the guided visualizations they express their visions, innovations, and creativity. They can clearly visualize their capacity to change their own lives and to make their communities better. They understand that they do not need more education in order to create and implement these visions. I think the imagination is perhaps the most underutilized and important resource for these women’s empowerment.”
Fatima-Zahra Laaribi, Empowerment Facilitator, High Atlas Foundation
IMAGINE Workshops are the first step in every community project, and they lay the foundation for all future development work. See more information below about how you can contribute to our ability to offer this transformational program.
“I attended four days of the IMAGINE course. This was my trigger for change. After what felt like an eternity, I was able to express my feelings, learn of distinctions between what duties I had as a woman, a wife and a mother, and how often this was overcast by an oppressive patriarchal culture.
I learned of my rights – beyond the culture that I was exposed to. Before this, I thought that getting a divorce would be too hard, but I felt strong enough for the first time to know that I have everything to live a good life on my own. I sat with my eldest son and explained to him what I was going to do and why, and I did the same with my parents. I feared their disapproval for so long, but they sat there, accepting me and what I needed to do.
Once the divorce was finalized, and with the support of The High Atlas Foundation, I became president of the cooperative. Currently, I am a certified empowerment trainer. I am supporting the women in my community, showing them there’s another way, a life of independence where women are empowered.”
- Rachida O
Learn about how IMAGINE workshops have benefitted people, families, and communities.
As the one-year anniversary of the September 8th earthquake nears, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) alongside community partners will come together to honor the painful losses, the healing, and the collective rebuilding with one and all here in Morocco, and around the world.
We invite you to be part of a new era of sustainable development across Morocco. Explore additional ways to become involved in our work.
