Moroccan Aïcha Ech Channa receives $1 million Prize
Aïcha Ech Channa, founder and president of a Casablanca,
Morocco, organization that provides services to unmarried
women with children, is the winner of the $1 million 2009
Opus Prize.
Ech Channa, 68, is something of an icon in Morocco when it
comes to human and civil rights for single mothers and their
children. During the 1980s she worked in the Moroccan Ministry
of Social Affairs where she was confronted daily by the ordeals
of single mothers.
She recalled an afternoon in a social worker’s office where
a single mother was giving up her baby for adoption. “This mom
was breastfeeding her baby, which means she never wanted to
abandon it. And at the moment when she forcibly took away her
breast from the baby’s mouth, the milk sprayed all over the
baby’s face and the baby cried. This cry was in my head. And
that night I did not sleep. I swore to do something.”
In 1985, Ech Channa founded the Association Solidarité Féminine
in Casablanca to provide services for single women and their
children. She started in a basement and now operates
three day-care centers and training schools, two restaurants,
four kiosks and a hammam (turkish batb,fitness center and spa).
More than 50 women receive training every year in literacy,
human rights, cooking, baking, sewing, fitness services and
accounting. Participants also receive daily child care and
medical treatments in addition to social, psychological and
legal support and counseling for better reintegration in their
society.
Ech Channa, a Muslim, says she gains inspiration from a sense
of justice rooted in the value systems of all religions.
“I want Solidarité Féminine to be a model that provides an
example for the respect of human rights, economic development
and confidence in humanism,” she says. “This is a model that
can be carried everywhere in the world.”
Her organization was officially recognized in 2002 by the
government as a charitable organization and has received
support from Moroccan King Mohammed VI.
Aïcha Ech Channa, founder and president of a Casablanca,
Morocco, organization that provides services to unmarried
women with children, is the winner of the $1 million 2009
Opus Prize.
Ech Channa, 68, is something of an icon in Morocco when it
comes to human and civil rights for single mothers and their
children. During the 1980s she worked in the Moroccan Ministry
of Social Affairs where she was confronted daily by the ordeals
of single mothers.
She recalled an afternoon in a social worker’s office where
a single mother was giving up her baby for adoption. “This mom
was breastfeeding her baby, which means she never wanted to
abandon it. And at the moment when she forcibly took away her
breast from the baby’s mouth, the milk sprayed all over the
baby’s face and the baby cried. This cry was in my head. And
that night I did not sleep. I swore to do something.”
In 1985, Ech Channa founded the Association Solidarité Féminine
in Casablanca to provide services for single women and their
children. She started in a basement and now operates
three day-care centers and training schools, two restaurants,
four kiosks and a hammam (turkish batb,fitness center and spa).
More than 50 women receive training every year in literacy,
human rights, cooking, baking, sewing, fitness services and
accounting. Participants also receive daily child care and
medical treatments in addition to social, psychological and
legal support and counseling for better reintegration in their
society.
Ech Channa, a Muslim, says she gains inspiration from a sense
of justice rooted in the value systems of all religions.
“I want Solidarité Féminine to be a model that provides an
example for the respect of human rights, economic development
and confidence in humanism,” she says. “This is a model that
can be carried everywhere in the world.”
Her organization was officially recognized in 2002 by the
government as a charitable organization and has received
support from Moroccan King Mohammed VI.
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