Protecting Children from Delinquency in Tangier

Six years ago Hamida Khrichef noticed something alarming in her community: young people loitering on the streets, smoking cigarettes and getting into fights when they should be in school.  Busy parents and a lack of activities for the city’s youth were creating an opportunity for trouble for these youngsters, and she was worried.   

That is when she took action and founded the Guidance Center for Children in Tangier.  The center is considered the first of its kind in Morocco.  At the center, councilors offer guidance to children while also providing sports and other games to ensure the children stay out of trouble.

“The main goal of this project was to listen to children, to talk, and learn more about their problems and needs to help them find solutions.  This is important to do now, before they grow up and it is too late,” Khrichef explained.

Khrichef, who has provided psychological advice for children and teenagers for five years, is one of the Arab Women’s Leadership Institute’s (AWLI) civil society activists.  She is also contesting the local elections in Morocco this year, and hopes to use her community activism to help others while in office. 

Khrichef first attended an AWLI training in June 2010 that discussed the role civil society played in economic development.  At the time, she was merely contemplating how to help these children on the road to delinquency.  After the training, she had a better sense of direction. 

For the training AWLI was joined by Gabriel Zinny, a civil society activist with more than two decades of experience working to improve life in Latin America.  Zinny discussed the challenges he faced while working with organizations that fought to prevent human trafficking and provided millions of dollars in computers to school children; he also gave some good advice to others who wanted to do something in their communities. 

“It’s not enough to want to do something,” Zinny told the training participants.  “You must have a specific goal, and a plan, but also the confidence to execute that plan.”

“This project was frightening for me, and I always wondered whether I would do it,” admitted Khrichef about the future children’s center.  “But after the training, and the lessons the speakers gave, I realized I was a strong person with immense abilities and could take on this project.  I started right way when I returned to Morocco.”

She concluded, “I imagine myself, after ten years, working on the same track that I have chosen with deep conviction and will persist with utter responsibility.”