"I have just met a relative who came from a rural commune located 40 kilometres from Essaouira; she is here to collect the two-month subsidy from the Tissir programme. She has been queuing since 9 a.m. without managing to get the 120 DH, half of which she has already spent! She told me in tears about the pain and humiliation she endures every time… She is now forced to spend another night in Essaouira to try her luck tomorrow first thing in the morning..", a citizen declared to us, commenting on the line of women and men in front of the Essaouira post office.
They have been there since the morning, dozens of citizens from the rural world, men and women, waiting for their turn to benefit from a mediocre and bitter subsidy. Because we are still witnessing the same scene of humiliation and desolation because of the "collective punishment" inflicted on rural people by Barid Al-Maghrib, which still refuses to put mobile counters back into service.
"Barid Al-Maghrib does not do charity for the rural beneficiaries of Tissir; it even profits from an annual turnover of several hundred million dirhams in exclusivity without making the slightest effort on the logistical level to serve the 32,000 families to the required standards," indignantly states a trade unionist in Essaouira.
Indeed, Poste Maroc has been managing the large financial transfers of the Tissir programme exclusively since the start of this ambitious project which has largely contributed to the fight against school dropouts, but it does nothing to contribute to the combination of the social and pedagogical vision of the programme. It is no longer admissible to impose on thousands of families to travel in painful conditions instead of mobilising a civil servant and a service car to the commune centres. "We still do not understand the passive attitude of the Ministry of National Education! It is a problem that arises every time without any reaction from the competent services, which content themselves with sterile words of compassion," the president of an APTE in Essaouira declared to us.
Admittedly, Tissir has improved the status and income of rural women who almost all currently have national identity cards, but it still fails to ensure payment conditions that respect their human dignity.
