USAID Project to Bring New Life to Morocco’s Historic Urban Neighborhoods
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing funding for Rebuilding Our Homes, a new program in partnership with the American Sephardi Federation and the Association Mimouna. 

This project, which will take place over the next three years, will work directly with the current inhabitants of the former mellahs, historic urban neighborhoods in Moroccan cities. At their peak in the 1940s, these once thriving communities numbered more than a quarter million inhabitants. This program affirms Morocco’s public commitment to inclusion and openness in a new era of international cooperation.  Rebuilding Our Homes will revive the legacy of the mellahs of Fez, Essaouira, and Rabat by teaching skills, creating tools, and organizing grassroots events to educate Moroccan youth, as well as training young local residents to be professional tour guides, artisans, and cultural ambassadors.  Oral histories will also be collected and preserved from the oldest primary source generation of residents.  These objectives all build on Morocco’s history of diversity and inclusion to celebrate the shared history and culture of all Moroccans.

This project is awarded under USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative (NPI).  USAID works to build a world that is safer, healthier, and more prosperous for people everywhere.  We promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.  NPI multiplies USAID’s development impact by elevating local leadership, fostering creativity and innovation, and mobilizing resources across the Agency’s programs.  Through NPI, we are diversifying USAID’s partner base by removing barriers to engagement with USAID and creating avenues for new and underutilized partners to work with us.

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