International Activity Report 2001

Morocco
2001

Aid to Excluded Women in Casablanca

International staff: 9 National staff: 6

MSF work in Morocco focuses on excluded populations: women, prostitutes, and other vulnerable people. Program activities take place in Rabat, the capital, Casablanca, and Tangier.

Morocco's maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in North Africa. In Mers El Kheir, an area of Rabat, MSF helped build a labor and delivery room in an area health center to improve women's prospects for safe delivery of their babies. The delivery facility was finished in July 2001. MSF hopes to eventually provide training to medical staff. In the meantime, MSF continues to offer health education on such topics as maternal health, family planning, and hygiene in the same area.

In August 2001, MSF began a project in Casablanca to provide basic care to excluded women and others living in vulnerable conditions in this port city. Working with a local association, MSF provides basic health care to prostitutes, and plans to add sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention and other education activities in the future.

In Tangier, MSF gives basic care to destitute people, many of them living in the old city. In a first stage, small street teams are seeking to identify vulnerable people, learn about their problems, and document their condition.

MSF began work in Morocco in 1997.

© 2009 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)