Touda and Hajar grew up in the village of Agoudim in Zawiya Ahanasal, Morocco. Cousins, classmates, dreamers — and now university students — their story is a example of what happens when opportunity meets determination.

From 2015 to 2020, they attended the Atlas Cultural Foundation tutoring program in Zawiya Ahansal. Those afternoons in the classroom didn’t just strengthen their academics, they lit a spark.

“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that program,” Hajar shares.

And Touda agrees:

“I’m so grateful for the opportunities it gave us. We got the support we needed, and now look at us.”

Their success didn’t make them walk away, it brought them back.

Since 2022, every summer, Touda and Hajar return to the ACF Center to help international volunteers teach English to local children. The program that once lifted them up is now being carried forward by their own hands. Two young women who once sat in those very chairs now stand at the front of the room, inspiring the next generation of students — proof of what sustainable, community-driven education can do.

They still talk about their favorite moment: ACF’s English Camp in 2018 — their first trip to Marrakech, their first chance to meet students from across the region — a glimpse of a world beyond their village, a world they now get to step into fully.