PURE Life Experiences choose Education For All as their sponsored charity for first International Experiential and Transformational Travel show in Marrakech

EFA provides accommodation for young girls from impoverished families from the High Atlas Mountains to allow them to continue their secondary education. In three years EFA has constructed two purpose-built boarding-houses in Asni and Ouirgane, and converted two apartments in Talaat-n-Yacoub, to create homes for seventy girls between the ages of eleven and fifteen. All living costs are paid for by funds raised by Education For All, and each house is looked after by a house-mother – more a favourite aunt to the girls than a stern disciplinarian – and a cook.

After his success with the International Luxury Travel Market in Cannes, acclaimed as the world’s most successful luxury travel trade show, and Asia Luxury Travel Market in Shanghai, considered to be the leading travel event in Asia Pacific, Serge Dive SET his sights on Marrakech for the first PURE International Experiential and Transformational Travel show, which is SET to become a major event in Marrakech’s commercial calendar. 

Mike McHugo, owner of Mountain Voyage and the Kasbah du Toubkal, and one of the guiding lights in EFA, is extremely pleased that PURE Life Experiences is supporting Education For All.“Anyone

would be happy to be associated with PURE because it is a top-end exhibition attracting a very high level of exhibitor and visitor. I think equally, though, that people are happy to be associated with Education For All, because with four years experience we can show that we are fulfilling an indisputable need.”  

With three houses in operation, costing over 70,000€ a year to run, EFA has plans to build two further homes in the next two years, which will double the running costs, added to which, capital costs of 100,000€ per house for building and fitting, means that fundraisers and volunteers have a busy time ahead.

“It’s touching to see that whatever fund-raising you are doing is helping to provide opportunities for people who wouldn’t otherwise get it,” says McHugo. “But it isn’t only about money. It’s also about getting support for the idea of what Education For All is doing. It’s a very powerful idea that touches most people.” 

Karima Targaoui is Education For All’s longest serving volunteer, spending over a year with the girls before returning to her home in Vienne, near Lyon in France. She still works with EFA as the coordinator of volunteers.  

“I’m really proud to be a part of this project when I see how the girls have evolved. They didn’t only improve their marks at school, they became more open-minded, independent and have a better understanding of life. They are conscious that education is the key to their individual and collective future. They are becoming real women, the women who will change Morocco.”

PURE Life Experiences is being held at the Marrakech Palais des Congrès, 1-4 November, 2011. You can learn more about Education For All at the EFA website  or by reading their story, A Different Life – The work of Education For All. (A French translation in pdf format is available from the website.)