Princess Lalla Asmaa (MAP photo)
RABAT – The Royal Family and the entire Moroccan people celebrate, on Thursday the birthday of Princess Lalla Asmaa, an occasion to highlight her various actions in the social field and her constant and unwavering commitment to the improvement of the situation of children with special needs, mainly hearing and speech impaired children.
A princess with a big heart, Princess Lalla Asmaa has been involved in social activism from a young age, constantly looking after the well-being of hearing and speech impaired children and undertaking initiatives that contribute to their integration into the social fabric as full-fledged citizens.
In her capacity as President of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation for hearing impaired children and youth, Her Royal Highness is concerned about this vulnerable category, surrounding it with her solicitude and providing invaluable support to this institution, a pioneer in the care of hearing and speech impaired children.
For several decades, the Foundation has been providing specialized education, based on the national primary and secondary school curriculum, to beneficiaries who are entitled to technical support, including digital hearing aids, cochlear implants, and electronic transmission systems that help them adapt and break out of their isolation.
The first class of baccalaureate graduates, from the Foundation, had been able to benefit, from the start of the 2018 academic year, from the partnership agreements signed with the Faculty of Sciences of Rabat and the Euro-Mediterranean University of Fez, which made it possible to broaden the fields of access to higher education to these students and to all those who will follow them.
For its part, the vocational training does not remain in rest. Indeed, training in embroidery, weaving, hairdressing and plastic arts are provided by the institution that takes the challenge of introducing its students to specialties integrated into the centers of vocational training, under the sector of Crafts.
The unwavering support that the princess never ceases to show towards hearing and speech impaired children is a sign of the constant adhesion of Her Royal Highness to the various initiatives of social and charitable nature.
In April 2020, the Lalla Asmaa Foundation for hearing impaired children and youth contributed 200,000 dirhams to the Special Fund dedicated to the management of the Covid-19 pandemic, established on the High Instructions of HM King Mohammed VI.
On Jan. 23, 2021, the Foundation and the Ministry of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research signed a framework partnership agreement to promote the enrollment of hearing impaired children in public schools and universities.
This agreement also aims to rehabilitate spaces for hearing impaired children, fight school dropout in the field of disability, encourage and generalize pre-school education for hearing impaired children, and build the capacity of educational and administrative staff as well as families with regard to techniques and mechanisms of inclusive education for children with hearing loss.
In Feb. 2021, the Lalla Asmaa Foundation for hearing impaired children and youth and the Moroccan News Agency (MAP) signed a partnership contract related to the promotion of the "NASMAA" campaign of cochlear implants for hearing impaired children.
Launched on Feb. 12, 2021, this campaign targets over 800 hearing impaired children nationwide, aged 5 or younger, from disadvantaged families, over a two-year period.
It is the result of a partnership between the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, the Ministry of Health, the Mohammed V Military Instruction Hospital, the university hospitals and associations working in this field.
Cultural and sporting activities are also at the heart of the concerns of Her Royal Highness who is also the Honorary President of the Society for the Protection of Animals and Nature.
With the celebration of the birthday, the Moroccan people pay tribute to a strongly committed princess who, by her great kindness and her known and recognized humanism, has forever marked the social action for the benefit of hearing impaired children. (MAP)
