Been a busy couple of days, met a lot of partners and friends of the exhibition, happy to report things are developing very nicely. Friday began with a visit to one of the benefactors of the exhibition, Association de Lutte Contre le SIDA-Essaouira, met with Belgacem Chafik the president of the association. He talked me through their current projects and what they are planning, one of the most important project they will be doing soon is the anonymous HIV and other STD’s testing during the festival of Gnaoua (20th-23rd of June), last year they were able to test 1500 young people over those three days. Aside from offering these tests to the people of essaouira, they are also active in prevention work as well as supporting HIV+ people, by providing them free medication and lobbying for them.
After I met with Peter and Janneke of FairMail (www.fairmail.info), who will be contributing work of their teenagers in the exhibition, three of them were there. FairMail have generously offered frames for the exhibition, thank you very much.
After I met with Peter & Marlène of Living Mogador (www.livingmogador.com), who were full of great ideas and are a great help in the promotion and finding partners. After the meeting we went to see and applaud at the finishing line of the Panda Raid, a friendly rally of Fiat Pandas from Madrid to Essaouira, another great event in this town.
On saturday I met with Paolo and Jeremy of Project 91 (www.p-91.com), the second beneficiary of the exhibition. They talked me through the different projects the foundation has been doing such as english lessons to underprivileged teenagers and sponsoring vocational studies for the same teenagers such as hairdressing. We also visited the shop of project 91, where they sell local handicrafts and clothing items with their “leave your wardrobe in morocco” campaign. 100% of the proceeding of the shop goes to finance the work of Project 91.
More adventures are coming on monday, so stay posted….