Morocco earthquake -Relief report updates

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Some of our associates providing relief in the High Atlas

Morocco earthquake -Relief report updates

22 SEPTEMBER 2023 10:53

Naturally Morocco has been closely monitoring the ongoing situation in Morocco. Below are some reports from the organisations who we have, in association with our many clients past and present, been supporting with your generous donations.

UPDATE 1; ON BMS ACTIVITY 12/09/23

The BMS have published the report below on their progress in bringing relief to the affected areas

1. We are working with the travel link foundation and Assafou association who despatched trucks of water and food on Sunday for onward distribution to fifteen villages today.

2. A team led by Mina Metoui is delivering today to the villages of Angousane and Mariga.

3. Ella Williams has led a huge amount of work mapping the needs of effected communities. Through village representatives we have identified specific requirements for the following and our deliveries should reach them on Wednesday and Thursday

Ouirgane Area, Tassaouirgane, Torord, Tinzert, Tizi Oussem, ID Issa, Tizi Zogagh, Tizi Oussem, Assif Zegzaouane, Talat n’Yakoub, Imidl, Agndi,Tazalt, Tagontaft, Ighil, Taos, Lbor,Moldikht

4. We have a team of five motorcycles preparing to leave this afternoon with lightweight supplies (power banks / tarpaulins etc). They will attempt to go deep into the effected areas. This initiative is not costing us a lot of money at the moment but can be scaled up quickly if it’s proven to be effective

Update 2; 14/09/23

1. We continue to support the travel link foundation and Assafou Association who are very efficient at volume distribution sending trucks deep into the effected area. The vehicle in the picture contains more than a thousand blankets supplied by the BMS on Wednesday.

2. We continue to distribute directly to villages where we have longstanding relationships. This involves a lot of research and coordination, the villagers are typically walking round trips of eight hours or more to meet us. The appendix below gives more detail.

3. Our motorbike team have had good successes taking small quantities of the most critical items into forward areas. We have been asked for picks and shovels so that the survivors can start to clear roads by hand. It was deeply moving to realise that a shortage of fabric for shrouds in some villages is adding to the distress of grieving families.

4. A water filtration engineer has joined our team. He brought four professional filtration systems and the photograph shows the first being installed today in a substantial field kitchen that is being built in Ouirgane.

5. Sourcing supplies is critical at this stage. Key items like power banks, torches, tents and tarpaulins are sold out in Marrakech. We are grateful to Sophie Martin, who with a group of other ambassadors wives scoured Rabat to buy a van load of precious items which we will be distributing as you read this. The photo shows Sophie at the British Ambassador’s residence handing these over to Mina Metoui.

6. Encouraged by your support we have the scale and ambition to look seriously at sourcing products Internationally. We have been working hard on that and there are some promising things in development.

In this context we are raising our immediate fundraising target to £250,000 Together we are making a very real difference, please continue to help by sharing this fund raiser as widely as you possibly can.

Appendix. On Tuesday Ella Williams took a transit van and two cars up to Talat n’Yakoub with essential food including: oil, milk, sugar, tea, coffee, rice, canned fish, cheese, washing powder, soap, sanitary pads and flour.

The convoy arrived to Tassouakte village in the evening and from there the food was sorted and distributed to families in Tassouakte, Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi.

A local man on the ground went on foot to six of the surrounding villages and made a list of the number of surviving families in need of aid in each of the seven villages. These are some of the hardest to reach villages in Talat n’Yakoub as they are far from the road and can’t be reached by vehicle.

The locals of Ighil, Tasghdimt, Tafrghost and Ahachi came down to Tassouakte this morning to collect the food:

Tassouakte – 9 families
Tasghdimt – 9 families
Tafrghost – 18 families
Aharchi - 8 families
Ighil – 25 families

We are returning on Thursday morning to bring food to:

Taos – 25 families
Timizar - 18 families

In addition, we will be bringing blankets, tarpaulins, ropes, sleeping mats, solar powered lights, power banks, torches, soap, baby clothing and underwear to these 7 villages tomorrow.

Update 3; 17/09/23 by Ella Williams, Organizer

We hugely appreciate the way that the British Moroccan community has rallied round this appeal.

1. We continue to support the distribution of aid in volume by the Travel Link Foundation and Assafou Association

2 We are supporting the Illys association who are installing Moroccan manufactured solar lamps in effected villages

3 We continue to distribute directly to villages where we have longstanding relationships. This is a very rapid and precise operation. For example much needed supplies arrived in the High Atlas village of Aharchi just 36 hours after they were purchased from the Souk in Rabat. The appendix below gives more detail

4. The field kitchen in Asni which we support with water filtration produced more than ten thousands meals yesterday and will ramp up further.

5 We are at an advanced stage in sourcing critical supplies internationally, currently working through customs clearance issues.

Our team in the field has strengthened and we now have time to be more active on social media. Please do keep sharing these messages, our targets are ambitious but achievable.

Sending love and best wishes to you and your families

Mike Wood
Chairman

High Atlas Earthquake Resilience Fund

This is another fund who we are actively supporting and they have been sending information as to the situation in the Atlas Mountains and how your donations are being used in the deployment of essential aid and supplies to these remote region. Follow the link to read more details and updates on their activities.

EFA; Education for All Update 21/09/23

Twelve days after the earthquake that devastated the High Atlas region, the entire EFA team is coming to terms with the devastation and shock is slowly turning towards solutions and focused action. Our initial focus was on locating the EFA students. This was challenging due to the chaos in the villages and lack of phone communication. We are relieved to share that all of our students were located, however, sadly one girl did not survive. We all feel this loss deeply.

Boarding House Update
We have been working with teams of structural engineers since the earthquake to assess the damage to our houses. The current picture is that we have lost four out of six boarding houses. Ouirgane House and Asni 1 are structurally ok. Sadly all the other houses will need to be rebuilt. To help with the rebuilding project, we launched our crisis appeal which has reached close to £190,000 already. Please consider a donation or share the link widely.

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Morocco earthquake -Relief report updates