Opus Prize - Aicha Ech Channa | University of St. Thomas

Aïcha Ech-Channa is founder and president of Association Solidarité Féminine, providing services in Casablanca, Morocco, to help unmarried women with children gain the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure their own livelihoods.

During the 1980s, Ech-Channa worked in the Moroccan Ministry of Social Affairs, where she was confronted by the ordeals these women and children faced on a daily basis.

"I was coming back from maternity leave and I was still with my baby," she says. "I was in the office of the social worker and I witnessed a baby being abandoned. This mom was breastfeeding her baby, which means she never wanted to abandon it. And at the moment when she forcibly took away her breast from the babys mouth, the milk sprayed all over the babys face, and the baby cried. This cry was in my head. And that night I did not sleep. I swore to do something."

In 1985, Ech-Channa established Solidarité Féminine to assist mothers in similar situations. The goal was to allow single women to keep their babies and to promote the rights of mother and child. The association opened a modest canteen where women could work, learn skills, make money and take literacy classes.

More than 50 women receive training every year in literacy, human rights, cooking, baking, sewing, fitness services and accounting. Participants also receive daily child care and medical treatments in addition to social, psychological and legal support and counseling for better re-integration in their society.

A Muslim, Ech-Channa says she gains inspiration from a sense of justice rooted in the value system of all religions. She explains that single mothers have been marginalized and stigmatized for too long in Moroccan society, although she notes the situation is improving.

"I want Solidarité Féminine to be a model that provides an example for the respect of human rights, economic development and confidence in humanism," she says. "This is a model that can be carried everywhere in the world. When you have love, when you have a child with a human being, a mother and a child, you can go anywhere."

Solidarité Féminine officially was recognized in 2002 by the government as a charitable organization and has received financial support from Moroccan King Mohammed VI. His wife, Princess Salma, attended the opening of the association's hammam (fitness center and spa) in 2004.

In addition to the hammam and day-care/training centers, the association operates two restaurants and four kiosks in the city.

"This is how we will change society," Ech-Channa says. "Otherwise we will remain hidden and our children will grow up shameful. Do I want to raise my child with his head down? I want to raise my child with his head up."

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[hypnotic5551]

what an amazing woman

[NederRokko]

Choukran lalla Aicha Choukra bazaaf, We al love you, Arterham lah loualidine lalla Aicha.

[allayister]

Mes respects Madame ...et merci d'exister...

[jugulair]

je vous aime Mme Ech-chenna....je vous aime

[honestwithself1]

May Allah reward you. I Love You.