From Sewing Fishnets in Morocco to Writing Projects in Sweden!
From Sewing Fishnets in Morocco to Writing Projects in Sweden!
This is going to be like a fairy tale.
Unexpected story to experience and live where I never saw it coming. I can not
jump into my story without putting you into the whole context of who the hell I
am and where I come from and how I ended up in Sweden.
First, I am not hell, but I saw it many times
in my life. I grew up to a very challenging and discriminating childhood in the
old town of Larache, northern Morocco. Larache comes across the Loukous river
that holds on the other bank a Roman ruin that was built 1200 years B.C. I
spent my earlier years as most of my generation, scrolling around dirty
streets, collecting wood from the port to sell it for Hammam, fishing at the harbour in front of the city pipeline, where the fish find a great deal of
rubbish and organic trash, then I sell the fish to make my day. Most of my
days, I spent with my father sewing fishnets or cleaning dirty boats when they
arrive at the port. Luckily, in between these childhood activities, I was also
spending time inside cold classes, where I used to wear flip flops during cold
winter and could see from the window of the class, huge boats coming and
leaving the harbour with a huge number of herring and anchovies. The teachers
from the other side were both cold and warm, some of them violently beaten me
in my nails, hand palms or feet with wooden sticks or green water pipes, and
the reasons were either talking in class, not reciting the text, not doing
homework or answering wrongly. Others were positive fingerprints in my journey,
they empowered the little soul in the warrior child.
From there until today, it was a huge story that we can talk about another time, of course, if you want to hear it. But, today I am at the final phase of a year experience in Stockholm, Sweden volunteering at Foreningen Framtidståget within the European Solidarity Corps programme. What I can tell you of this year will be divided into three parts: What is the European Solidarity Corps Program? How does a Moroccan African who spent most of his childhood at the harbour collecting fish, ends up writing projects that once approved, will bring local change in Larache? And What is next?
European Solidarity Corps, ESC, is a mobility
program that funded my twelve months volunteering in Sweden. To be part of this
program, I was sent by my supporting organization Amuddu Chantier SansFrontiere from Taroudant, Morocco and received by my hosting organization
Foreningen Framtidståget from Stockholm, Sweden. All of this was done through a
project application where Framtidståget applied for a project grant to have two
volunteers from Morocco and Ukraine, titled as Window of Change. Once the
project was approved, I was supported by my sending organization to apply for
the visitor’s permit residence of one year, prepared for the trip and for the
program. I had continuous calls and exchange of documents and information with
both Framtidståget and Amuddu CSF that facilitated the whole process of
pre-departure. All the visa costs were covered by the project, and once I received
the permit of residence, Framtidståget bought me the flight ticket from Tangier
to Stockholm, with a layover in Brussels.
Once I joined the organization in Sweden, I was
introduced to the new office, our department working space, all employees and responsible
of the organization, and I received a great welcome from Anas, the project
manager and the one responsible of my stay. Since I knew some faces from
before, I felt that I just joined my Swedish family. My tasks at Framtidståget
were various project management and event organization, administrative tasks,
and acro-parkour training. Just a few weeks later, me and Maryna, the volunteer
from Ukraine, joined the On-arrival training organized by MUCF at Brommaplan
Folkskola, the training was an introduction to the ESC program and a meeting
point with all the volunteers of ESC in Sweden. Later in the year, we had our
mid-term training to catch up with the experiences and achieved goals of each
volunteer.
Of course, in the beginning, none of us would
think that this year won’t be as normal as it started. Just a few months later,
the world went upside down. From January until the end of March, we were still
in shock of what is going to happen next in Sweden and in the whole world. The
pandemic started to take over streets, cities, countries, and people’s lives, while
many of our international projects had to be put on hold. While we
wrote projects for February deadline to Erasmus+ program, with the help of
Sebbe (our project coordinator) and Maryna (the volunteer from Ukraine supported by NGO People), I was
facilitating acro-parkour training which was a local activity supported by TIA Stockholm to gather youth,
adults, and families with their children, both migrants and Swedes and enjoy
acrobatics, family massage, meditation, parkour and fitness workout. Not many
weeks later, Sweden decided to cancel many of the social activities and schools
started to reduce numbers of activities and students per sessions.
During this time, I had a wonderful person coming over to Sweden, my wife Fatima Zohra. What destiny brought us is experiencing the world lockdown while living together in the Swedish forest lifestyle. We decided to move together to live in the southern suburbs of Stockholm and we chose to live in a Villa. We shared a huge wooden house with our greatest friend and father-like figure, Micke. We were surrounded by wild forests, trees, birds, flowers, thousands of small creatures, and of course green tracks and lakes. We started working from home, and my tasks were more focused on writing new projects and acquire new digital skills and knowledge. I was given free access to an Online Linguistic Support to learn Swedish, I enrolled in an intensive project management course on Coursera, designed new ideas and plans for projects in Morocco; and embraced the nature around us to breath and enjoy life with my partner to its fullest.
We learnt dozens of new recipes, sailed within
the archipelago of Stockholm, created our garden and planted flowers, herbs and
vegetables, jammed through singing and playing the guitar with Micke. We also
dedicated our weekends to explore other Swedish cities and areas. I must admit
that the most colourful spring and summer I have ever seen is in Sweden. We
also celebrated national and religious events in small gatherings respecting
the restrictions. Midsummer was very unique and we made crowns of flowers and
filled our house with flowers all around. We live together with our dear Aslan,
a dog from Romania whose peaceful soul brought him to Sweden, and with Gunnar,
the most responsible cat who comes and goes with no plans, he eats here and
there and always prefer to eat luxury food. Aslan and Gunnar are friends and
roommates for a long time, but their relationship is quite unique and needs
another article. They love each other, but Aslan always eats Gunnar’s food.
Cooking and planting!
I was offered plenty of training projects that were held online and I dedicated more time to learn from a distance. Maryna, the volunteer
from Ukraine, was also involved in organizing other activities and writing more
projects. We were communicating every working day through digital platforms
like Trello, Slack and Google Workspace.
With the help of Yulia and Anas (my mentors and project managers), my management skills were sharpened to design and write a more coherent project application. I was introduced to different grants applications and I found my passion in reading guidelines and answer application questions in a more human and social way. I wrote projects that would take place in Larache, Morocco and surprisingly 5 out of 7 were approved. I was more excited to write in each deadline because I believe that these projects will bring more change to Larache and will empower many young people with fewer opportunities, that I am one of them, to fight for their dreams and take off for education and become local change-makers. I wanted to give back these experiences I acquired in Sweden with Framtidståget and ESC to Larache, and address democratic practices and social inclusion through youth exchanges, and training courses. As an African Moroccan, I can not think of success without the success of many young people that I know are suffering from discrimination and exclusion. And Framtidståget and ESC gave me the best shot to achieve that.
These projects will take place after
twenty-twenty, with the hope that vaccination and community immune system make
travelling safe and exchange projects a possibility. Even though I am writing
this text on a plane flying back to my hometown, this is just the beginning.
The best part of this story is that I was
offered to work for Framtidståget after my ESC voluntary work finishes. With
the role of assisting, implementing and writing more projects dedicated to
Morocco and the MENA region. With the brightest sun-facing my face now, after a
very dark winter in Sweden, I am happily accepting the offer and willing to
make more change in my hometown, and make the little soul of the warrior child
prouder to continue living and loving, and alongside my wife, there is nothing
I wish more than this life. I won't live in Larache, but I will always be the
bridge of change, who just came out of *Window of Change* with a bag full of
experiences and knowledge. Wherever I am next with my wife, we will never
forget Sweden and the Swedes, I will never forget my project department,
Framtidståget, and all the people I met during this year, I will never forget
the European Solidarity Corps, and what principles and values this program
build in me. I will never forget Micke, and his wonderful home, Gunnar and Aslan, and every single person we met during my year in Sweden, the experience with you was a great success!
What is next?
...
I was farewelled with a wonderful Swedish dinner with the project department and given another appointment to meet in Morocco during 2021 to follow up with the approved projects.
In addition to this article, you will find a vlog that was part of the project dissemination where I and Maryna talk about our experiences within Window of Change project, and we take the viewers to visit the office and our yellow villas. You can watch it here!
Moreover, we made a live stream on Instagram where we talked about ESC and volunteering with Framtidståget and we answered some of the audience questions, you can find the video here!
#esc #europeansolidaritycorps #mucf #windowofchange #erasmusplus #europeancommission #morocco #ukraine #sweden #stockholm #2020 #2021
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