Rebuilding Hope in Morocco

Jihad Hajhouji

By Abedin Kustura, Fatihah Jacob & Gulan Abdullah

Many youth in Morocco believe they can in land a job in the private sector after leaving school, according to Jihad Hajhouji, (YES 2008), but she says their expectations don’t match the reality.

When they are unable to find a good job because of high unemployment, Jihad says they lose faith and give up hope in the job market. However, this hopelessness doesn’t include Jihad. She views the situation as an opportunity to take action and join her fellow YES alumni to make a change. She educates youth about how to maximize their skills through the non-profit seminar, Rabat Entrepreneurial, that runs for a week during summers.

Jihad Hajhouji

The Education Activism track of the YES Alumni workshop in Istanbul, was a chance for Jihad to explore other alternative methods of project design and management so she can incorporate them into her project effectively. Jihad is involved in an intensive four-day process while working in a team that shares her same goal for their home countries. The process includes identifying community issues in their home country by analyzing the needs and desires of affected community members, and learning how to maintain self-sustainability. Jihad’s team meticulously planned their project design by identifying their goals and objectives including a success metric that could be implemented to test their projects.