Read The Stubborn Past: Thirty-five years after the “Dirty War,” a trial in Argentina is still struggling to shed light on a bloody legacy in Foreign Policy Magazine.  It’s splendid reporting from an early-career journalist.  Alex, we’re proud to know you!

Moroccan and American journalism students meeting for the first time in February 2012, Rabat, Morocco

At Round Earth Media (REM), we’re all about partnership. Too often, American journalists parachute into a country for just a few weeks of reporting, failing to grasp the nuances and complexities of what is, for them, a foreign country.  Round Earth Media journalists work differently.  REM’s American journalists collaborate with the most promising young journalists in the countries where REM is reporting.  Together, in equal partnership, they produce stories for top-tier media in the U.S. and abroad.  It’s a new model for producing original, reliable, unbiased reporting.

The Moroccan-American Journalism Partnership is the first time that this model has been applied to student journalists.  For more than two months, six student pairs — an American partnered with a Moroccan — worked to produce what one of the Moroccan journalists called “a mosaic bowl of articles” ranging, from the topic of racism in Morocco to the Soulaliyate women’s movement.  Vital to its success was the support and enthusiasm for this program from ISIC professor Khadija Zizi and  her colleagues at ISIC (L’Institut Supérieure de l’Information et de la Communication, the journalism school in Rabat, Morocco).

Aside from the journalism they produced, the students say they learned a lot about their mutual societies and cultures. Mehdi Sejjari, one of the Moroccan journalism students, was paired with American journalism student Eboni Bell to write a profile story on a February 20th activist (Morocco’s “Arab Spring” movement).  But, well into the project, the activist had second thoughts and refused to agree to be interviewed if the article was published in Morocco (the Moroccan students are publishing their articles in a student on-line magazine). Such is the nature of doing journalism in Morocco, challenges which  the students learned about first-hand.   Mehdi Sejjari collected comments from some of the students and starts with his partner, Eboni Bell.

The success of this partnership is confirmed by students who participated in the program. “I would not have been able to conduct interviews without my partner,” says Eboni Bell.  “I enjoyed communicating my ideas to him and listening to him about what directions to take for the article, and I would recommend this partnership for future programs.”

Princess Goodridge, another of the  American journalism students, says, “I have benefited a lot. I have not only learned from my Moroccan counterparts as they have also learned from me; but I have also gained lifelong friendships that I will cherish always”.

Youssra El Hassani, a Moroccan journalism student who partnered with American journalism student Marie von Hafften, said, “It’s the first time for me to work in pairs, so we were always together to discuss every detail. The idea of pairs is very important because sometimes we had to interview people speaking only French or Arabic and I had to translate”.

The program has finished its first edition, but it seems that the impact of this partnership will not fade.  It’s not just a professional or academic experience, but rather a real project of collaboration between Moroccans and Americans.

Mariah Carey is slated to perform at the Mawazine Music Festival in Rabat

We are partnering in Morocco with some brilliant academics —  two with whom we’re working most closely are Said Graiouid and Taieb Belghazi. They invited me to participate in a fascinating conference recently at the University Mohammed V in Rabat.  Researchers came from around the world to discuss topics ranging from Moroccan hip hop, to racism against Sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco, to the importance of Moroccan music festivals.

Here’s just a taste.

Moroccan Music Festivals

Everywhere one turns in Rabat these days, there are billboards advertising next month’s block-buster Mawazine Music Festival (featuring big stars like Mariah Carey along with lesser-known luminaries). Urban spaces in Morocco have long been controlled and exploited by the State but now, for some observors, music festivals have given a great portion of that urban space back to the people. On the other hand, some Moroccans say they plan to protest the Mawazine Festival in particular, arguing that the State sponsors expensive festivals (which are usually free of charge to those who attend) in order to placate and distract Moroccans from the very real social, economic and political problems facing them. Researcher Moulay Driss El Maarouf shed light on “the urban dynamics of power and  counter-power in Moroccan music festivals.”

Racism and Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco

One of the major problems facing the world today is the growing number of migrants and refugees.  It used to be that most Sub-Saharan migrants were just passing through Morocco, heading for Europe where they hoped to find jobs.  But with the European economic crisis, along with more restrictive migration laws, more Sub-Saharan migrants are settling permanently in Morocco.  According to researchers Yamina El Kirat El Allame and Moad Hajjam, many Moroccans express intense feelings of racism and zenophobia toward these migrants.

Arab Spring and Hip Hop Cool

During the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the media has insisted on the importance of hip hop culture in the struggle for freedom.  But this may be oversimplified, according to Cristina Moreno Almeida, who is studying Moroccan hip hop.  Why have two of the countries with the most vibrant hip hop scenes (Morocco and Algeria) not experienced major revolts?  Morena says rap can be a tool of resistance but it is much more complicated than that.

Just three of  the fascinating topics addressed at the conference. No final answers here but it is this kind of conversation that can deeply inform our reporting from Morocco.    Thanks to Said, Taieb, participants in this conference (which, by the way, was titled Migration, Human Rights and the Politics of Identity in a Globalized World), the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (which supported the conference),  the University of Mohammed V (Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences and the Research Group on Migration & Culture) for a fascinating conversation which I know will be weaving its way into our reporting.

Moroccan journalist, Aida Alami

Next Generation Journalism is about partnership – with students both in the U.S. and in the countries where we’re working – and also partnership with early career journalists in-country.  Journalists like Aida Alami, a talented young Moroccan who files for major media in the U.S., including the New York Times.  In partnership with Mary Stucky of Round Earth Media, Alami filed for The World, on NPR, a new outlet for her. Our story is the kind of contextual reporting on a sensational issue that we think is so important.

Click HERE for our story on the Amina Filali rape case and Morocco’s new Islamist government.

Under Secretary of State Maria Otero in El Salvador | Photo: Ambar Espinoza

The United States has long ties with El Salvador.  In the 1980s civil war, the U.S. backed the government of El Salvador despite it’s serious human rights abuses.  Now there is a new partnership between the U.S. and this country wracked by poverty and gang violence.  Under Secretary of State for Civilian Society, Democracy and Human Rights Maria Otero visited El Salvador recently while our reporter, Ambar Espinoza, was in the country on assignment for Round Earth.  Espinoza sent us this report about a new U.S. role in El Salvador, a country that used to make headline news in the U.S. and is now almost forgotten.  Here’s Ambar Espinoza:

Otero visited a police precinct where a U.S.-funded pilot program has reportedly succeeded in reducing the homicide rate in the town of Lourdes Colon by 40 percent. Lourdes Colon is a community that has been highly affected by gang-related crime and violence.

Otero said the United States is assisting the police force in Lourdes to gather information using simple technology, such as extracting information from the cell phone chips of gang members in order to gather intelligence. The program offers police with equipment and training for investigations, prevention and community policing.

In 2009, Lourdes Colon had 319 homicides; in 2010, 285 homicides; in 2011, 184 homicides. “Overall, the decrease they have seen is a decrease that appears to be real,” said Otero. “This is important because it is a model that is not just going to…find anyone with a tattoo and put them behind bars. It is really an effort to understand how you gather intelligence, it is an effort to understand how it is that gang members are linking to others to extort, to carry out different crimes, to even kill each other.”

Otero said security in El Salvador affects security in the United States.  “Part of the issue of security, not just around the United States but around the world, is one that is a very important piece for our own overall security, our national security,” she said. “Generally, I think being able to make sure that countries are secure and are stable and are safe ensures that their citizens can stay in the country. It ensures that they can also develop economically and even become an important source of economic interaction with the United States.”

The program also integrates a youth mentorship program between the police and a local school where elementary and middle school students learn strategies for how to stay in school and on track for college, prevent getting involved in gangs and maintain a healthy relationship with their parents.

“It [the work] is involving the community in a very real sense to make sure that they are active in this work,” said the under secretary. “It’s putting cameras in different places. It’s giving radios to policemen. It’s creating a 9-1-1 that allows them to deal with issues that even extend beyond gangs, like domestic violence…”

This model pilot program will be replicated in the country’s second largest city west of San Salvador in Santa Ana, another city highly affected by gang-related crime and violence.

Round Earth reported about gangs  from Nicaragua.  Here’s that report.

Photo: Kirsten Kortebein in the New York Times

Our journalism students are what amounts to the only working newsroom of U.S. reporters and photo-journalists in Morocco.   When they arrived in January, we told the students  – no guarantees – that if their work was good enough we would help place their stories and photos in top-tier U.S. media.  Jackie Kantor and Kirsten Kortebein’s compelling story  is the first major placement from our inaugural – and ground-breaking – journalism program.  HERE”S ”On the Run in the Sahara, for 153 Miles” in The New York Times.

This is proof positive that with mentoring from a team of journalists affiliated with Round Earth Media – along with academics and experts affiliated with SIT Study Abroad —  students can produce journalism at the very highest levels of our profession and major US media will publish and broadcast their work.

Our program comes as U.S. newsrooms both big and small are contracting and closing and as the desire for stories outside U.S. borders is greater than ever before.   With the professional and expert guidance of U.S. journalists and in-country experts, our students are helping fill that information gap.   And, this inaugural program isn’t over yet!  Look for more stories soon and, please,  tell any aspiring undergraduate journalism student to sign up NOW for our fall program – deadline approaching!  One more thing:  if you like what we’re doing, please give to Round Earth Media to support journalism from the next generation of global reporters and photographers – you can help make sure there is one!

Photo: Shalea Harris

This soccer game was the first official match by the Sbaa Roudi women, who played against the SIT Study Abroad journalism students.  The match was organized by the local NGO “Development and Solidarity” headed by the female activist Lazar. The village women won in a shoot-out.

Photo: Kirsten Kortebein

The village’s 5K race was billed as a “marathon” to celebrate International Women’s Day. More than 100 women of all ages participated and wore an array of sweats, hijabs, soccer uniforms and even slippers.

Photo: Stacy Wheeler

But there’s a lighter side to Sbaa Rouadi – sports, festivals and especially food.  Eating local takes on a whole new meaning here. Except for the occasional orange or banana, village residents grow all their own food and even make their own couscous, Morocco’s staple starch. At tea time, tables are piled high with fresh bread, platters of green and black olives and butter from local cows. But although the homemade food tastes delicious, preparing it is no picnic. For the average resident of Sbaa Rouadi, eating local means that food preparation structures much of the day.

Baking bread alone takes rural women up to two hours. Hanan Maghnoui, a seventeen-year-old in charge of her family’s culinary affairs, laughs when asked how many times she bakes bread each week. “I make it every day! What a question. How do you think we eat?” By her estimates, she spends between eight and ten hours a day preparing and serving food, and that’s with the help of a koukout,or pressure cooker.

Hanan has never been to school. “The school teacher here hit my older sister once, and after that I didn’t want to go,” she said. But she learned to read and write at home and she keeps a small notebook with family recipes.

For bread though, no recipe book is required. After she cleans up breakfast, Hanan throws together approximately fifteen cups of flour, a quarter cup of salt and some yeast in a large plastic tub. Little, by little, she adds warm water until the flour mixture becomes a moist dough, called aheen in Arabic. After kneading the dough for fifteen minutes, she covers it with a towel and leaves it to rise.

Unlike traditional American bread, Moroccan khobz is not baked in a pan. Instead, the dough is fashioned into flat circles and baked over coals in a faran, the traditional Moroccan oven.

Photo: Stacy Wheeler

When the oven is ready, Hanan flips the round, flat pieces onto a long sheet of blackened metal with the skill of an Italian pizza chef. Then, she slides the tray into the mouth of the oven and tosses a wet jacket over the opening to help keep the heat in.

The wait is short. After just five minutes, the flat dough has puffed into golden half orbs, slightly brown on the edges. Hanan flips them over and covers the oven opening again. This time, it’s just sixty seconds before she pulls out the loaves, which have grown into evenly browned circles about an inch tall and twelve inches in diameter.

The bread cools for a moment, but Hanan does not have the luxury of watching it. She’s already busy preparing lunch.

While women are in charge of baking bread and preparing meals, men work hard to produce the raw ingredients. Wheat, potatoes, lentils, tomatoes and olives are all grown locally in addition to a wide variety of herbs like mint, which is used for Morocco’s famous tea.

Although most of the village land is dedicated to agriculture, Sbaa Rouadi does not lack for meat. Chickens, which cluck around the front yard of most homes, are a common—and fairly inexpensive—source of protein. They are generally left free to roam, and sometimes families find eggs tucked away inside feed bags or under dense piles of brush. Rabbits are another common source of dinner meat and are often raised to be sold so the family has a small source of cash.

A more common source of cash is milk cows, however.

Each day, Mohammed Maghnoui wakes up just before dawn, at roughly five-thirty in the morning, to milk the cows for the first of two times that day. After wiping their udders clean with some water from a nearby pump, he races to finish the chore before his neighbor—who owns a van—arrives to pick up the 16 gallons of fresh milk. After collecting the entire neighborhood’s milk, the man drives it to nearby Fez, where it is sold to city residents in time for breakfast.

Not all the milk is sold, however, and extra becomes fresh butter, yogurt, and a salty buttermilk drink called leben that is especially popular after Friday couscous.

“The butter is the best in Morocco,” Mohammed says as he spreads it generously on a slab of fresh bread. But he recognizes the tradeoffs. “Work here is hard. Sometimes I work twelve hours a day.” He points to his hands which are creased with dirt and tough from hard field and wonders what it would be like to live in the city. But like most residents, he ultimately insists that the country is the place for him. Stacy Wheeler MORE

Photo: Princess Goodridge

There is some improvement in the lives of twenty six Sbaa Rouadi men. At least for now.  The men are working construction on what will be a school for Islamic studies in the village.  The project is funded by the Association Abi Bakr Essedik for Education, according to Abdesselam Bouchokhi, the accountant for the project. In Morocco, private associations are building schools because the government of Morocco fails to provide all the schools that are needed. Still, while this construction project is providing temporary work for the men of the village, it is not a permanent solution to economic development here.  Louis Zeller

Even for graduates of the new school, there’s no guarantee of a job, says Bouchikhi . And while tuition, room and board will be free for the more than 200 students, the school is only for men. Bouchikhi says  “no women from the village will be able to attend.”  Princess Goodridge

Despite these challenges some people in the village are able to achieve an education – even an advanced one.  Youssef Rahmouni holds a BA in English literature and is currently pursuing a second BA in history. Rahmouni’s family hosted student journalist Veronica Jean Seltzer. Seltzer interviewed Rahmouni and started by asking what made him want to get a higher education.

Photo: Veronica Jean Seltzer

Rahmouni: The first motivation is the prophet, peace be upon him. When I was a child I always wanted to read books-philosophy, literature. I was motivated to read religious books about the prophet and how he was so humble and intelligent to unite the Arabs. I was inspired by him, his communication style. I don’t know, maybe I’ll be like him. Second is my Mom. She’s so loving. I want to help the family financially and socially. The University is two hours there and two back. Leaves you no time to revise, no time to read, but I did my best to continue.

Seltzer: We certainly did not expect to have such a scholarly host brother. What do you think about that?

R: I’m not the only intellectual here. Perhaps because I speak English we can exchange ideas. Language is just a window through which we express ourselves. The others are intellectual too. They just can’t speak.

S: Do you think you’re different from other villagers?

R: Yes, maybe I’m different. I have thoughts, ideology. I’m similar in the life; I suffer like them, I want to change things.

S: What do you see for yourself in the future?

R: I dream to improve the life of the people here. One can only do this through politics. To take their voice, the real voice, to the right hands. People should benefit from politics, not become victims of politics.

S: What is your favorite part of living here?

R: Its calm, peace, good people. Peaceful in terms of nature, people. Not in terms of politics. We’re fighting to gain our rights, to fight the corruptor, to achieve development. This is a daily challenge.

S: Could you imagine living anywhere else?

R: No, I don’t imagine myself living somewhere else. This is my place. I’d fight to improve it and whenever I go I’d fight to come back. This is a humanitarian and religious principle. I would die for this place. MORE

Photo: Antinnea Skipwith

In addition to economic challenges, women and girls in Sbaa Rouadi face roadblocks in education. Seven year old Sara Rahmouni Charhrouchi is a bustling bundle of energy but her future is in doubt. Sara’s 26 year old brother, Youssef Rahmouni Charhrouchi, wants her to be  an “educated, intellectual woman” but admits that it will be difficult to convince their “very very traditional” father to allow her to take the 2 kilometer trip to and from the closest university. The way in which fathers control their daughters’  lives is “barbaric,” says Charhrouchi.  He explains that  traditionalists fear women coming back late from classes will be involved in sexual relationships.

In Sbaa Rouadi, barriers to education exist even before women reach the college level. A woman associated with the village’s housing and rehabilitation association exclaimed passionately that her twin daughters “cry their eyes out every night” because they had to quit school at age 12 due to lack of transportation to school.

Sabah Lazar

Charhrouchi believes that the struggle for women’s rights, especially education, is a crucial one, adding that villagers must not  “act randomly” and instead need to organize for change. Antinnea Skipwith

30 year-old Sabah Lazar may be the voice of change in Sbaa Rouadi. “She is a female activist and the epitome of hard working,” says villager Charhrouchi. Working without pay for nearly 15 hours a day, Lazar leads community groups associated with economic improvement, medical care, roads and education. “Seeing results is my motivation to keep going; I will not marry, work less, or stop until change comes,” says Lazar, clenching her fists. Lazar is outspokenly critical of local politicians who she says fail to support her efforts to improve the lives of people in Sbaa Rouadi. Eboni Bell MORE