Agadir - CorpsAfrica has just finished training ten young Moroccan social activists. This is the second group of Moroccans that will be sworn in on January 26th to volunteer in rural areas across Morocco for one year of service.
CorpsAfrica is a nonprofit organization founded in 2011 by Liz Fanning to provide an opportunity for Africans to serve like Peace Corps Volunteers in their own countries.
Last year, the organization succeeded in training and placing seven Moroccan volunteers in different regions of Morocco including the High Atlas Mountains and Dakala Abdaa regions. This year the organization trained its first group of nine volunteers for 2014-2015, all of whom are already serving in their community.
The second group of trainees comes from many different regions of Morocco: Ouarzazate, Nador, Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, and Al Hoceima. They go through one month of training before beginning their service.
During the first week of training, the volunteers participated in Design-Thinking, facilitated by the trainer Garrett Mason at the Cultural Center of Sidi Moumen in Casablanca. There they were exposed to theoretical and practical aspects of problem solving and facilitation before being placed in their communities. During the Design-Thinking training, CorpsAfrica trainees were divided into three small groups and designed different projects to address the major issues that Sidi Moumen Cultural Center faces.
The trainees learned several skills to identify community needs, as well as used tools that will help them come up with an appropriate end of service project, which will be needed to address key needs of their community.
The Design-Thinking process includes the gathering of information, focusing (in which volunteers define the need of the community), prototyping (in which they create a visual image for a certain project), delivering the project and receiving feedback from the community.
During the training, CorpsAfrica trainees received first aid certification by the Red Crescent, met different active Moroccan organizations, and visited the sites of last year’s volunteers. They also had the chance to attend lectures at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.
CorpsAfrica has the eventual goal of having 250 volunteers in every African country by 2024. As part of a three-year pilot phase, CorpsAfrica plans to expand to Senegal and Ethiopia before scaling up to the rest of Africa.
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