Back Hajar El Hawari: "being a member of an NGO allows you to implement many of the things we study on the degree. It’s a crash master’s degree course!"

Hajar El Hawari: "being a member of an NGO allows you to implement many of the things we study on the degree. It’s a crash master’s degree course!"

Hajar El Hawari, along with Azahara, an association for development cooperation, has presented a project to carry out a community leadership training programme for rural women in Xaouen (Morocco). Her proposal has received a grant in the call for financial assistance for social engagement and sustainable development projects

24.04.2020

Imatge inicial

Hajar is a second-year student on the bachelor’s degree in Law and a third-year student on the bachelor’s degree in Political and Administration Sciences at UPF. She is also is a delegate of the headquarters of Azahara in Barcelona, a volunteer with the Xarxa de Convivència (coexistence network) association, a member of the Deba-t.org association, and a volunteer for the UPF Legal Clinic.

Azahara is a non-profit organization that aims to create social and cultural entrepreneurship ecosystems, especially projects related to education, culture, inclusion and development cooperation. It is the first time it has entered a call for grants.

 

How do you plan to allocate the grant you have been awarded in the call for social commitment and sustainable development projects?

One of the main goals of Azahara is to carry out international cooperation projects in the fields of education, equality and culture. In this context, the project we wish to get under way is a training scheme in community leadership aimed at women in rural areas in northern Morocco, specifically in Xaouen, in the Tangier-Tetouan region. This initiative seeks to become a space for mutual learning, in which we are able to reach all those women who are benchmarks in their environment and have a vocation for social transformation and engagement.

We hope that the women who join the scheme will complete the experience acquiring the tools and skills necessary to develop their own projects by creating new entities, which can in turn serve as a stimulus for other women and young people in the region from a theoretical, but especially pragmatic viewpoint, thanks to social entrepreneurship. To do so, we will enjoy the collaboration of UPF, of course; but also of universities in Morocco and prestigious educators in a great many fields: communication, administration and finance, legal framework... Always thinking that the participants can create a project and approach it with useful resources. We are also supported by partners of the NGO, thanks to their social engagement, and even the International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders in Spain (UN).

We hope that the women involved complete the experience with the tools and skills necessary to develop their own projects

What ties do you have to the place where you are implementing the project?

My parents are of Moroccan origin. Since I was born, we have visited Morocco every summer to see family and we take advantage to do sightseeing throughout the country and get to know its different regions. These trips allowed me to discover a very different reality from the reality I could see not only in Catalonia but in the city of Tangier itself, which was about two hours away.

Over time, these leisure trips also started to become a social commitment. So, when we considered the possibility of implementing a project in rural areas of the Tangier-Tetouan region, I was really excited, due to my links with the area and because I knew that there really is a need for things to change.

The project involves the Abdelmalek Essaâdi University. What does it consist of?

As it is a training project, partnerships with universities in the same country, and at the same time the involvement of other academic institutions, are essential, whether it is to prepare the subject matter we wish to share or to develop the more logistical part and the certification of the knowledge acquired.

A training scheme for sharing resources and knowledge among farmers of Chefchaouen

Collaboration with universities allows us to provide the ecosystem and the educational resources to participants. At the same time, it facilitates the collaboration of prestigious educators with a proven track record. Specifically, collaboration with the University consists of the loaning of the spaces where we will offer the training, but also our ability to get in touch with the teaching staff and workshop facilitator. We have to bear in mind that the central theme, which is community leadership from a gender perspective, requires a holistic, cross-cutting vision when programming the various training modules.

Azahara is an association that was set up in 2018 with a very young board of directors and several projects already in progress. What is Azahara, how did you find out about them, and what is your role as a delegate in Barcelona?  

Azahara is a non-profit organization working to promote social entrepreneurship among groups of diverse origin, and it also has a line of action aimed at development cooperation in northern Morocco. At Azahara, we aim to create social and cultural entrepreneurship ecosystems, especially projects related to education, culture, inclusion and development cooperation. Azahara’s areas of action are mainly based on the 2030 sustainable development goals (SDG). It aims to create global change to transform towns and cities through social innovation from a cross-cutting perspective by sharing best practices and resources.

At Azahara, we aim to create social and cultural entrepreneurship ecosystems, especially projects related to education, culture, inclusion and development cooperation

I came to Azahara through its chairman, Mohamed el Amrani, who I met at one of the activities of the coexistence network. He explained the project to me and invited me to an event organized at the Museum of History of Catalonia. The activities of the association and its various projects seemed very interesting and I decided to go for it and join. At first, Azahara was only in Salt and then also in Girona; but last year they decided to expand the organization and open offices, one of which is in Barcelona. The board asked me to be their representative and, from there, we began to take steps to set up the delegation and start to promote projects from our new location. As an Azahara delegate, I am in charge of coordinating the activities of the delegation, managing its various projects, contacting the partner associations and institutions, and representing the association in Barcelona.

The association takes the Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals into consideration. To what extent are linked to your mission?

Each year, Azahara gathers all of the people who actively belong to the organization and prepares a cooperative action plan. It is one of the most important times for us because it allows us to assess real needs and put proposals and innovative solutions on the table that develop into projects. During this process, we also decide which of the 17 goals we wish to focus our activities on. This is fundamental. Focusing on 2-3 of the goals helps us put all our efforts into very specific initiatives and bolster their impact. We believe that the Agenda 2030 is an opportunity; but the major challenge is to know how to convey to the citizens what it means and how people can be a part of it. Regarding social aspects, there is a tendency towards technicisms and taking certain issues for granted. We organizations must make a huge educational effort to explain ourselves well and convey what the SDG involve; to look beyond the margins of society to be truly inclusive.

After hearing your presentation, we see that you are very busy... How do you manage to combine studying for two degrees with your involvement in several social entities?

There are a lot of hours in a day and we must be capable of making the most of them to achieve a positive impact on what matters to us. In my case, I have always had been greatly concerned with social issues and I consider myself a dreamer; so spending my time participating in various social entities is no effort for me, rather it motivates me.

Training scheme in in educational leisure and free time for young people in northern Morocco.

As for my studies, I am very satisfied because I like both degrees, and I often think that, seen from the outside, what I do seems more than it really is. It is true that it are time-consuming and, as I study mornings and afternoons I end up spending many hours a day at the University; but in the end it is all about learning to organize your studies and taking advantage of the university hours to live life beyond lectures and seminars. Moreover, being a member of an NGO allows you to implement many of the things we study on the degree. It’s a crash master’s degree course!

This is the first time you have applied for the call. What encouraged you to participate? What do you think about the University’s involvement in social cooperation and sustainable development initiatives?

We thought it would be very interesting to apply for the UPF Solidària call as the Pompeu is a young, dynamic and internationally outward-looking university. In addition, as a student, I knew that it collaborated in several cooperation projects worldwide, and we felt that our project fitted in with this framework for action.

As a student, I appreciated the fact that the University is not just a place for generating and transferring knowledge, but also an engine for undertaking social change. Excellent narratives are often created here but they never become a reality. Knowing that UPF provides the resources for young people to make a positive social impact is a message of hope and of future.

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Profiles of the protagonists:

Hajar AlHawari

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SDG - Sustainable Development Goals:

Els ODS a la UPF

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