Teaching Moroccan Arabic to Migrating Students (3rd class)

Salam!

It's Chenise.

This June, I will be putting on 9 language-centered workshops, teaching Moroccan Arabic to 20 students who have migrated to Morocco from West/Central Africa and live in vulnerable and precarious situations. This class will be the third interation of this initiative.

These folks have enrolled in my class as they are eager to use these language skills to manage their living conditions in Morocco. The students speak French, which is also a spoken language in Morocco. However, most Moroccan citizens' mother tongue is Darija (Moroccan Arabic). The Darija class will be instructed in French.

I am working with the Association of Migrants and the Destitue (Association des migrants et démunis en français ou A.M.D.). The association heads, Ousmane and Narcisse, are fantastic, and have been active with collecting and distributing donations such as diapers, food, and other necessities among migrant communities in Casablanca. They are also active in organizing programming around migration and West African culture and tradition. I have donated to this organization myself multiple times because they do incredible work.

Learning Arabic can help folks to find jobs, make friends, and connect more to Moroccan culture. Also, this class is fun and an excellent way for them to come together multiple times a week and laugh and stimulate their minds. If you want to know more about the daily lives of migrants, watch the film Aji-bi (the film focuses on Senegalese women living in Casablanca, here's the trailer: https://youtu.be/AgupiJZSiII )

The class will occur three days a week between May and June. Each class will last an hour and a half, over the course of 3 weeks (9 sessiosn total). We begin May 26th and will end June 13th. We will be hosting the class at a youth center. What is distinct about this iteration of the class is that we will provide each student with a language brochure with important phrases to know in Moroccan Arabic; they can carry these around with them and employ the phrases when in the necessary context. These incredible students will also recieve transportation fares to and from our class. Give what you can so we can make this class happen.

Budget:

- $720 transportation stipends for 20 students (for 9 sessions)

- $60 Moroccan Arabic language brochures

- $100 for the classroom space

- $20 Pens and notebooks

Despite efforts to formalize migration policy in Morocco, there remains a critical need for educational and socio-cultural programming that fosters and promotes integration, while addressing the unique challenges faced by these communities. If you would like to learn more about Morocco's migration and border situation, click here: video

This initiative also ties into the larger goal which is bridging cultures and the African Diaspora vis-à-vis language and solidarity. Many of the students enrolled in our classes find themselves at the intersection between Black, francophone, and migrant, and many have been living in Morocco for years, so learning Moroccan Arabic allowed them to strengthen their connections with the citizens and the cultures. This initiative demonstrates that migrating students, when provided with the opportunity, are eager to use language skills to better manage their daily living conditions in Morocco and to see themselves as a part of the society.

Donate what you can family <3

Who am I?: Chenise Calhoun is a 6th year PhD candidate in the French Studies program at Tulane University in New Orleans and serves as a board member for the Louisiana Museum of African American History (LMAAH) and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Additionally she is a Mellon fellow with the Diaspora Solidarities Lab, co-leading the Translation Lab-- a lab dedicated to translating powerful texts from heroes and heroines within the African diaspora into African languages. Her dissertation research examines the relationship between Blackness and Africanity in contemporary Moroccan literature and cultural production to interrogate colonial and nationalist mythologies that obscure Morocco’s plural history, while also exploring reimagined solidarities beyond race and power among Morocco’s southern populations. She is a graduate student member of the Center for African Mediterranean Studies at Arizona State University, and holds roles for the Mellon-sponsored project Keywords for Black Louisiana.

Language experience: I studied abroad in Meknes, Morocco in 2017 where I took a 15 hour Moroccan Arabic course. In addition to self-study in the summer of 2019, I was a volunteer in Peace Corps Morocco where I studied Moroccan Arabic daily along with staying with a Moroccan host family. Since then, I have travelled to Moroco 7 additional times, and forever growing in my language abilities of this colloquial dialect of Arabic.