As we commemorate two years since the 2023 earthquake, HAF with the communities we serve want to extend our deepest gratitude. Thanks to your generosity, we achieved remarkable progress and are making a lasting impact on tens of thousands of families.
September 8th, 2025 marks two years since the earthquake that shook the High Atlas Mountains. In the immediate aftermath, HAF and its partners delivered food, water, shelter, and urgent care to nearly 15,000 families, standing with communities in their time of greatest need.
Today, on this anniversary, we remember the lives lost and honor the resilience of those rebuilding. With your support, HAF continues to walk alongside local people, fostering women’s empowerment, restoring farmland and water systems, promoting literacy, and creating homes and community spaces for the future.
Moroccan government agencies at the different administrative tiers are absolutely vital partners and enablers of these local development experiences that are community driven, integrated, and sustainable. HAF extends its sincerest appreciation.
Relief and Rebuilding
Immediate Aid
In the weeks after the earthquake, Morocco mobilized caravans of aid. HAF’s supporters boosted this effort with individual donations and large grants from corporations and foundations. HAF’s existing relationships of trust with communities in the High Atlas helped us distribute aid with dignity and reach those most in need. Two years later, HAF and partners have distributed over 690 tons of essential aid to families in need, reaching across hundreds of villages, many of which were hard to access.
Intermediate Shelters
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, with donations from supporters like you, HAF built temporary housing, equipping each site with sanitation and solar kits, mattresses and blankets, along with immediate relief not limited to food and drinking water.
HAF built intermediate shelters, solid buildings made with durable materials, giving families the irreplicable sense of safety, security and dignity of being in their own homes. HAF has provided 183 temporary homes to families and cooperatives since the earthquake.
Agricultural Terraces
Agricultural terracing has been practiced for generations, allowing the steep landscapes of the mountains to be used to cultivate a variety of staple crops, as well as walnut, almond, and cherry trees. The earthquake caused significant damage to existing terraces, disrupting local water supply and agricultural production, and contributing to land degradation.
To support the reestablishment of agricultural practices and the livelihoods of farming families, HAF has facilitated the reconstruction and expansion of 307 terraces (some 17 hectares), benefitting over 4,000 people.
Water Infrastructure
The earthquake caused significant damage to critical water infrastructure, deteriorating the availability and quality of water for irrigation, drinking, hygiene, and sanitation. Without water for irrigation, agricultural production decreases significantly or totally, contributing to food insecurity, rural poverty, and urban migration within these farming villages.
Without clean water the risk of waterborne illnesses, and poor hygiene and sanitation outcomes increase. Rehabilitating damaged infrastructure to support individual health and well-being became essential to the short and long-term recovery of affected communities.
HAF's water infrastructure activities include:
Constructing 8 potable water tanks and 16 irrigation basins to support daily life and agriculture
Constructing 12.06 kilometers of new and rehabilitating 23.9 kilometers of existing traditional irrigation canals
Installing 6,000 meters of piping to nourish agricultural lands
Installing 62.3 kilometers of potable water pipes to expand and ensure access to clean water
Powering 12 water wells with 467 solar panels and installing 11 solar pumps
Although two years have passed since the devastating earthquake, its impact on the communities affected remains vivid. In this challenging time, HAF’s psychosocial empowerment workshops have offered more than support, they have sparked emotional healing, resilience, and renewed hope for the future.
Reaching Thousands
These workshops have touched thousands of lives, providing not only practical support but also deep emotional healing.
Emotional Healing Beyond Numbers
HAF’s psychosocial empowerment workshops have brought profound emotional healing to the communities most affected by the earthquake. Women, men, and children shared how these gatherings renewed their self-confidence and inner strength, giving them hope for a new life and belief in their own potential.
Nearly 99% of participants expressed that they no longer feel alone, as they experienced support on two complementary levels. First, within their own communities, they consider themselves a united group, finding strength and solidarity in each other during difficult times—an essential foundation of their resilience. Second, when outsiders such as HAF and partner associations visited and provided support during a time of urgent need, participants felt deeply acknowledged and not forgotten. Many even shared: “We were in the deep mountains of Morocco, and with the earthquake, the whole world knew about us and visited us. We no longer feel alone.”
These workshops thus highlighted both the power of internal community bonds and the importance of external recognition and support, which together contributed to their emotional healing. Participants also reflected that the solidarity born in the aftermath of the earthquake continues to sustain them. For some, through their spiritual faith, the tragedy—though painful—was also seen as a hidden blessing, echoing the Qur’anic phrase:
“It may be that you dislike something while it is good for you.”
The workshops created a safe and supportive space where participants could open their hearts, not only about the earthquake, but also about long-standing struggles tied to poverty, social pressures, and personal relationships, including those with their children and spouses. This openness helped reduce stress, ease emotional burdens, and restore a sense of dignity.
Children’s Healing and Joy
At first, HAF considered keeping children separate with nannies so that women could focus fully. Yet field experience revealed that children, too, carried observable emotional wounds from the earthquake. By conducting separate workshops tailored for them, children were able to express their emotions, rediscover joy, and heal through play, creativity, and connection.
Empowering Men
Men, meanwhile, appreciated having workshops specifically for their group, as culturally they often believe they do not need to heal from trauma, viewing themselves primarily as providers and supporters. Traditionally, they see themselves as the last to require help or psychosocial support. Yet, through these workshops, men described feeling lighter, more hopeful, and more resilient, not only in managing their personal challenges but also in envisioning and initiating collective projects that benefit the entire community.
Creating Community Impact
Together, these workshops have fostered healing on both individual and collective levels, strengthening community bonds and opening a pathway toward recovery, resilience, and renewed hope for the future. Most importantly, they have sparked a flame of possibility, inspiring participants to harness their inner potential and create projects that benefit their communities immediately after the earthquake; such as the cooperatives established by HAF in Imlil, Aghbar, and Talat-N-Mimoun.
HAF's efforts to rebuild back stronger haven't stopped with infrastructure and psychosocial healing. We have also trained 5 teachers to provide literacy courses for 75 women across five women's cooperatives to inspire women to grow their skills, open new pathways toward economic independence, and shape stronger futures as leaders in their communities.
While HAF recognizes the incredible progress made, there is still more work to do, and the time to act is now! HAF has received requests from 380 villages to implement our Family Literacy Program. With the cost for one program that benefits 100 women, men, and children being $15,000, meeting all requests will total over $5.7 million.
HAF can achieve these needs with your support! Every donation, no matter the size, brings us closer to our goal and closer to empowering more families and communities through literacy.
Special Thanks to our Donors and the Moroccan Government
... who enabled us to support the earthquake affected communities in Morocco
To the partners of the High Atlas Foundation, on behalf of all whom we serve together, thank you for enabling what we seek most of all: livelihoods that endure, natural environments that are strengthened, and heartfelt dreams that come true.
Thank you for coming to the aid of the Moroccan people and staying connected with the High Atlas Foundation as we continue the rebuilding effort.
.jpg?upscale=true&width=1200&upscale=true&name=Banner%202%20(3).jpg)
.png?upscale=true&width=600&upscale=true&name=Participants%20(2).png)
.jpg?upscale=true&width=1000&upscale=true&name=unnamed%20(5).jpg)
.jpg?upscale=true&width=630&upscale=true&name=unnamed%20(4).jpg)
.jpg?upscale=true&width=600&upscale=true&name=unnamed%20(6).jpg)
