Washington Report, January/February 2006, page 64

Arab-American Activism

Moroccan Communities from DC, Orlando Meet

	Moroccan Americans from Orlando and Washington, DC meet to map out a new organization in the U.S. which they hope will build bridges with Morocco (Photo courtesy Moroccan American Chamber of Commerce).

A DELEGATION from the Washington, DC Moroccan community visited the Orlando Moroccan American Chamber of Commerce in November to coordinate a series of activities with the Moroccan communities in South and Central Florida

The Washington and Florida communities have decided to join forces in order to start building a strong core of associations in various parts of the country that would lead to an organized and effective Moroccan community in the U.S. The goal of the effort is to build an efficient, representative, modern and forward-thinking federation of Moroccan American organizations. The group could contribute to Morocco’s economic and social progress as well as improve relations between their adopted country and their country of origin.

Some issues they tackled included:

• Pooling of resources for better outreach to their respective communities to inform them of upcoming actions and provide opportunities for greater participation.
• Outreach to Moroccan-American organizations in other parts of the country  such as Houston/Dallas, Chicago, New York, Boston and California.
• Work with all concerned to collect statistics to better gauge the size of the communities in various parts of the country.

The visiting group included Hassan Khantach, the Moroccan consul in Washington, DC; Hassan Samghouni; Mostapha Saout and Adil Naji with The Washington Moroccan Club, Allied Media Corp and Arabesques; Mohamed Hajjam and Mostapha Abdelmoumen with AV Actions, as a TV crew/reporter/producer for Al Maghrebia TV and RTM TV; Salem Ammagui, NY-based director of Royal Air Maroc; and Kadour Fattoumi, reporter with Maghreb Arab Press.

The host was the Orlando Moroccan American Chamber of Commerce, a group of talented and active business people, including Addul Aitboukil, Hassan Erroudani, Karim Bennouna, Nouredine Chehab, Mohamed Tazi, and Rachid Choufani, a prominent businessman and owner/operator of the Moroccan Pavilion at Epcot center. For more information see the Moroccan-American Chamber of Commerce Web site <www.marocam.com>.