ABURY from the beginning until today

Women and children in the sometimes isolated Berber villages in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains lack access to education and exchange. Together with the organization PENCILS FOR KIDS, the ABURY Foundation is launching an intercultural project week at the school in the Douar Anzal community: workshops, painting, photography and playing together are on the agenda. A library of donated children’s books, school supplies, notebooks and pencils is established.

To combat the high youth unemployment in Morocco, the ABURY Foundation is setting up a training center for young women, where a tailor couple teaches them traditional leather embroidery. In 2011 and 2012, 20 girls and young women will be given the opportunity to acquire the basics for long-term employment.

Since there is no preschool education in the Atlas Mountains, many children start school unprepared and leave after only six years to work. Therefore, the ABURY Foundation establishes a preschool, initially with 12 children – only a few years later, dozens of children from neighboring villages are on the waiting list.

More and more parents are enrolling their children in school, so seating is becoming scarce. Through a fundraising campaign, the school receives new chairs, which are colorfully painted by the children and labeled with the names of the donors. True to the motto: sit colorfully and learn cheerfully for a bright start into a better future!

In Morocco, 42.2% of children aged 12 already suffer from periodontitis. Heike and Holger Janssen, who is a dentist, visit the ABURY Foundation School in Douar Anzal with their children and bring 180 toothbrushes, as many tubes of toothpaste, a tooth crocodile, education and lots of fun.

Morocco’s cultural heritage, of which every handmade Berber bag is a symbol, is threatened by consumerism. Andrea collaborates with MB6 STREET ARTISTS and Vestalia Chilton, founder of Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, for the art project “Pass on the Flame”: six street artists each work on a Berberbag on the theme of cultural identity. The unique pieces will be exhibited at the Marrakech Biennale and then auctioned off to benefit the ABURY Foundation. The artists also transform the school in Douar Anzal into a work of art

Marcus Lehman, a Berlin-based sports therapist, rides his bicycle to Douar Anzal and collects donations for the village’s children along the way. It enables the construction of a sports field and brings sports equipment and clothing. With the goal of incorporating physical education classes into the curriculum, he even teaches the school’s teacher.

The development of artistic talent is unfortunately denied to many children in Morocco. Together with Namika, a well-known German rapper with Moroccan roots, the ABURY Foundation is founding a music school. Namika visits the village, the children are beside themselves and sing and dance with her. In her video ALLES WAS ZÄHLT – BONUSFOLGE – GUTES TUN Namika reports from her visit.

Morocco is in a “sanitary state of emergency”. In order to protect the children of the ABURY school in Douar Anzal from COVID-19 at the beginning of the global CORONA pandemic, ABURY ensures the implementation of Moroccan hygiene rules: Masks are distributed, donated fever monitors are used at the entrance of the school, as well as a disinfection column.

Together with the famous advertising photographer Thomas Rusch, the ABURY Foundation launches the art charity project PortrAID. The idea: A well-known photographer takes a portrait of a person in need, the ABURY Foundation sells the unique piece and uses the proceeds to help the portrayed person directly solve his or her problem. Proceeds from the first edition will provide free surgeries to artisans suffering from cataracts.