Education Gives Girls A Voice in Morocco
DOUAR LAADAM, Morocco — In a tiny Moroccan village on the outskirts of Marrakesh, dozens of teenage girls finished a session of after-school activities by shouting affirmations: “I am strong! I am smart! I am capable!” they cried out. “I am a leader! I am a feminist!”
Such a scene is extraordinary for this Muslim-majority country, especially in Douar Laadam, a poor village where many teenage girls drop out of school around puberty to marry and start families.
Maryam Montague — a former humanitarian aid worker turned hotelier, designer and self- described “social entrepreneur” — came up with the idea of giving these girls a voice through a program she created, Project Soar.
“No country can get ahead if it leaves 50 percent of its population behind,” said Ms. Montague, an American expatriate with an Iranian- born mother. “Investing in a teen girl is investing in 40-plus years of a productive future.”
Project Soar offers girls academic support, empowerment coaching, health education, sports and arts classes. It’s free, but the girls must pledge to stay in school.
Ms. Montague pays for the nonprofit in part with proceeds from a boutique hotel she and her husband built as well as funding from America. It will also receive financing from Ms. Montague’s new fashion line, Agent Girlpower, a small collection that includes athleisure wear and jewelry inscribed with feminist messages in both Arabic and English. Since the program started in 2013, Project Soar has expanded to 21 sites, and some 475 girls have participated.
Ms. Montague hasmade progress toward starting the first branch outside Morocco, in Uganda.
The idea of Project Soar was to offer teenage girls an incentive to stay in school so they would postpone marriage and childbearing. Morocco’s enrollment rate for girls drops to 24 percent after ninth grade.
In exchange for a commitment to continue their studies, the girls got access to after- school programs that otherwise didn’t exist there.
When Ms. Montague learned that fewer than half the girls in the region passed an exam at the end of ninth grade that is required to move on to high school, Project Soar added tutoring to the program. This support has increased the passing rate for girls in Project Soar to 73 percent compared with the rate of 44 percent girls in the Marrakesh region.
A majority of the girls’ mothers were teenagers when they married, and there has been some opposition to the project.
In Morocco, as in many devel- oping countries, girls miss school around puberty because they cannot afford supplies for their menstrual period. Project Soar distributes period kits and teaches girls how to manage menstruation.
“There is such a culture shame,” Ms. Montague said.
Khadija Satour, 15, was forbidden by her father from joining Project Soar. But she asked again a year later and he relented, said a program administrator, Wafaa Afkir.
When Khadija first arrived, she stuttered, Ms. Afkir said. Now, she is communicative, and proud.
“Knowing myself was the biggest takeaway of my empowerment journey,” Khadija said. of