projects

MTDS is supporting the Association Tanmia.ma’s Community Access Center (CAC) in Salé to create a youth oriented local media platform. The final product of the activity will be similar to a community radio station but based on the Internet.

The project teaches youth about media freedom while developing their information technology and communication skills. Young people in the community will be trained as roving reporters for the platform. MTDS is supporting Tanmia.ma in planning and building the media platform.

MTDS is supporting the Association Tanmia.ma in its current strategy to empower Moroccan youth to become multimedia content producers in the Web 2.0 era. The next generation Web, popularized by sites such Flickr ou YouTube, is quickly transforming the Internet user from a passive consumer to an active contributor in a global network. The appeal of this new form of social networking is strongest among the “younger generation” and offers opportunities to channel disaffected youth into positive forms of community participation.

MTDS project management and technical expertise built the successful Moroccan civil society portal, Tanmia.ma (www.tanmia.ma) and founded the local NGO that now manages the portal. Tanmia.ma is a French/Arabic online portal that serves as a platform for information exchange, diffusion of capacity building resources, alliance building, debate, and advocacy activities for Moroccan civil society organizations. Online since October 2004, the number of portal users continues to grow – in January 2006, the portal averaged nearly 5000 visitors daily making it among Morocco’s most frequented websites.

Another MTDS developed tool for civic education is www.jeunessearabe.info, an Arabic/French information portal serving Arab Youth. The portal, which is managed by UNESCO, offers documentation and discussion forums on topics that interest young people in the Middle East and North Africa. Themes addressed on the portal include cultural and religious tolerance, community involvement, health and environmental awareness.

In 2005 and 2006, , MTDS worked with the Moroccan NGO Morocco Educational Resource Network (MEARN) to deliver training to over 2000 teachers and vocational training instructors.

MEARN is a member of the IEARN global network and is actively engaged in online collaborative projects with students in the US and elsewhere on civic education themes.

In 2005-06, with funding from the European Union,  MTDS and the Association Tanmia.ma teamed to produce a series of animated stories entitled, Know Your Rights! The stories, conceived by Moroccan women and children during focus groups sessions held in the pre-production phase, illustrate key reforms in Morocco’s new Family Law and universal principles of children’s rights.