Pay it forward

At a school for underprivileged girls, in industrious domestic kitchens, an art studio alive with creation, and a tea room in the sun-baked lanes of an ancient kasbah, Vee Sey meets the Moroccan women who simply cannot wait to meet you

-  Vee Sey

Sarah Chakin's young face glows with pride and gratitude as she shares her story, which is more inspirational than perhaps she realises to a westerner like me, who is familiar with a contrasting model of youth. Were it not for her hunger for knowledge and almost unattainable dream of a different life, Chakin would have undoubtedly followed the same path as her sister and been married at the age of 14, possibly to 'an old man', she says with a grimace, a multi-generational fingerprint of her High Atlas mountain world. Instead, the Amazigh girl from a remote village went to a school run by an independent charity, Education for All, and became an electrical engineer.

Chakin, pupils and volunteers at the school near Asni village welcome me excitedly with cascades of sweet mint tea, pastries speckled with lime-coloured pistachios, and animated introductions that leave me under no illusion that they take nothing for granted up here, where the air is thin and opportunities for women even more so. Under the wing of nurturing villagers employed as house mothers, they have found freedom, choice and confidence - in themselves and the future in this land where East meets West and Sahara meets sea. And while divorce is rarely called a happy ending, Chakin's sibling, galvanised by her sister's bright future, split from her husband and went to school too.

Journey with care