The Doukkala Association, whose founding father is Abdelkrim Bencherki, recently held its general assembly in El Jadida. This assembly provided an opportunity to draw up a comprehensive report on the various activities and actions that the Association has carried out over the last four years.
The Doukkala Association is a school of activism, relentlessly tracking poverty, social fracture, and cultural underdevelopment. Each year, its published reports reveal a more impactful reach of its local activities at the very heart of the targeted populations. Ramadan operations, the fight against illiteracy, functional literacy, health education, schooling, training, not to mention the environment, are all areas regularly invested in by the Doukkala Association, whose implemented programmes always result in as many achievements and new steps gained on the path to fighting poverty and the isolation of the region's populations. Concretely, thousands of rural adults have benefited from literacy classes, hundreds of women have benefited from functional literacy, and hundreds of children from our countryside have been schooled.
According to Abdelkrim Bencherki, since its creation on 15 December 1991, the Doukkala Association first led the fight against illiteracy in the rural world. Thus, the literacy programme reaches 2,500 women/year. They receive 300 hours of instruction over one year. This training is provided by 35 facilitators and supervisors in 28 centres spread across 14 communes. This highly monitored programme, with a dropout rate barely exceeding 8%, is carried out in partnership with the Secretariat of State for Literacy and the National Education delegations of El Jadida and Sidi Bennour. Similarly, the Alpha-Maroc functional literacy programme concerns a group of 500 female farmers, with the objectives of literacy and professional assistance allowing them to improve daily milk production and, consequently, their income.
This programme, delivered by 11 facilitators across 6 rural centres, is accompanied by training and awareness-raising work touching on health and hygiene, which also benefits the 2,500 women in the aforementioned programme. The Alpha-Maroc programme is carried out with the same partners and also the valuable support of the Nestlé company. And still in terms of education, the schooling programme for 600 children per year from the rural world, aged 9 to 15, helps fight against school dropout. This education, provided by 26 facilitators, concerns about fifteen rural communes. Thus, the Doukkala Association was officially designated a member of the board of directors of the National Agency for the Fight Against Illiteracy. It organises medical caravans in isolated communes such as Ouled Boussaken, Moghress, and Ouled Aïssa. These caravans mobilise about a hundred participants, including 40 doctors, 40 nurses, as well as medical equipment and supplies.
They benefit several thousand patients in the region. These actions are carried out in partnership with JLEC, Cooper Pharma, the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity, and the provincial delegation of Public Health and medical caravans. Another initiative of the Doukkala Association: it created a haemodialysis centre and strongly contributed to the equipment of a medical analysis laboratory and a blood transfusion centre. According to the president of the Doukkala Association, "the Chouaïb Doukkali haemodialysis centre, which His Majesty King Mohammed VI visited in 2009, is intended for a totally destitute population condemned, for lack of support, to certain death. Obviously, the Association restored the old civil hospital to house this dialysis activity as well as a blood transfusion centre and a medical analysis laboratory". In addition, 120 young people benefit each year from computer courses, 120 others from language courses (English, German, French, Spanish), 20 children from painting courses, and other young people and children benefit from calligraphy and music courses.
And within the framework of the INDH, the Association continues to deploy all efforts to promote the art of the Saïssia Djellaba and the pottery of the region, without forgetting to carry out actions in favour of isolated communes. Alongside this educational, health, social, and humanitarian aspect, the Doukkala Association has constantly watched over the animation and creation of a cultural and artistic atmosphere in the region. Consequently, the cultural and artistic influence of El Jadida is undeniable at the national and international levels, and one can unequivocally affirm that the Jawhara and Jawhara Talents International Festivals, organised every summer under the High Patronage of H.M. King Mohammed VI and in collaboration with the province of El Jadida, contribute to it during the summer period by bringing together the most famous Arab artists in a unique event and unearthing the stars of tomorrow. These Festivals are all motivations for the promotion and revitalisation of the sustainable economic and social development of the province. The Doukkala Association also organises the environment week every year, aiming to raise awareness among the population of the Doukkala, and in particular young people, about the importance of environmental issues so that they participate, as citizens, in the preservation and development of their region.
