Today’s Good News: A Recipe For Women’s Empowerment in Morocco | Good News Today

All over the city of Marrakesh, football fever had taken hold. Africa’s continent-wide soccer competition, AFCON, was being hosted in Morocco. And here, at the Amal Targa Center, a fan zone had been set up for the big clash between Egypt and Benin.

Yet the most impressive team performing that night was not a group of sports stars. It was the half dozen young women cooking up an epicurean storm, from mouthwatering burgers to spicy merguez sandwiches and decadent chocolate waffles.

This pop-up fast food is far from the only style of cooking that Elhiba has been taught during her time with Amal, a Marrakesh-based nonprofit that sees chef training as the recipe for women’s empowerment in Morocco. During the course, which runs for about nine months, she is learning how to make staples like khobz bread, classics like tajine stews, French gastronomy, as well as her new favorite cuisine: sushi.

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“I really like it,” says Elhiba, who has since become a fan of Japanese anime and K-dramas. “Even my mom asks me to cook it for her.”

Elhiba is one of more than 350 women who have been trained by Amal since it was founded in 2012. The nonprofit’s goal is to address the stark gender inequalities in the north African nation. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 ranked Morocco 137th out of 148 countries. And, despite making up roughly half of the population, Moroccan women represented just over 22 percent of the workforce in 2024, according to the International Labor Organization.

Moroccan women “continue to face discrimination, harassment and barriers in various facets of life, both public and private,” a recent report by Afrobarometer concluded.

“Let’s not hide the sun with our hands. In Morocco, like many other countries, we are living under patriarchal norms,” says Fatima-Zohra Iflahen, a gender expert, activist and professor at the Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh.

In order to cook up change, an American-Moroccan woman called Nora Fitzgerald Belahcen began Amal as a small baking business with two women she had met. Both were struggling to support themselves and their children, so Belahcen, who was born in Morocco but raised in California, suggested that they start making brownies and cheesecakes to sell together. Little by little, the project began to rise, like a cake in the oven.

About 30 women are selected each year from the hundreds who apply to become trainees. All are in economic need and some are single mothers, who often face rejection by their communities due to taboos in Morocco and as a consequence live in severe poverty since it’s nearly impossible for them to obtain work.

“The first week can be very difficult,” says Ismail El Batalani, one of Amal’s chef trainers. “Some women don’t know how to read or write. Some women didn’t know how to make bread.”

As part of the course, the women receive a holistic package of support: Free cooking training, language lessons, life coaching sessions, culinary masterclasses, cultural outings and health insurance; a monthly stipend to cover living expenses and bus transportation fees; and an extra stipend for students who have children.

Sana Ait Lamallame, 22, did the training in 2023 and now works as a server at the Gueliz restaurant. She obtained a high school diploma when she was younger but, after studying chemical science at university for half a year, she was forced to drop out to support her mom.

“When I started I didn’t know how to cook, I had no foundation,” says Lamallame.

Not only has that changed, but so has the young woman’s mindset.

For many, that dream has become a reality. According to Amal, which provides support for job applications such as writing resumes and preparing for interviews, graduates of the program have increased their earning capacity two to five times on average. And 87 percent of its alumni are currently employed in the culinary sector.

“It’s not just giving jobs to women, it’s giving them back their dignity, teaching them to respect and love themselves,” says Professor Iflahen. “This holistic approach gives them autonomy. If they lose their job, they will be able to find another.”

Over the years, Amal, which relies heavily on international donors, has also played a role in responding to crises. When the Covid pandemic struck, the organization delivered thousands of food baskets and meals to families in need and frontline workers. When a deadly earthquake struck Morocco in 2023, it distributed meals, tents and solar lamps, and even today provides long-term development aid, such as supporting residents in the region with beehives for honey production.

In recognition of those achievements, Belahcen was awarded the Champions of Change Award at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2023.

But Iflahen says that there is still a lot of work to be done in Morocco. She points to failed state policies, such as a pledge to reach at least 30 percent female employment by 2026, and the fact that equal rights for men and women — enshrined in the 2011 constitution —is far from established.

“There are many contradictions when you look at it,” she says. “There is a limit to what NGOs can do to empower women. They cannot substitute the state.”

Iflahen also calls for a broader range of empowerment efforts, supporting women in both rural and urban areas and expanding beyond sectors traditionally associated with women such as domestic work and caregiving. Yet she is also keen to underline the “wonderful” work that Amal and others have done to date.

“For me, I am happy to not be counting on a man,” says trainee Elhiba. “I should have my own money, my own income. I have been given that opportunity.”

Scrolling photos courtesy of Peter Yeung and Amal.