Nadia Serhani

This is Nadia Serhani’s service story:

“Poverty can lead to unthinkable things. After returning from a military training camp where I met a lot of Iraqi refugees, I could not sit and watch as the world goes hungrier and poorer. But because of logistics, I was not able to help war victims as I would have loved to; rather I decided to help the needy in my own native country, Morocco. Sending a child to school, a child who has nothing and seeing their smile as they open their backpacks and touch that pencil and dream of better future is the best feeling one can live with and live to see…If you do not impact this world, even one person, to become better, then you lived an empty life…this is how I personally see it.

With fellow Moroccans, we decided to create the Morocco Foundation to become the first US-based non-profit to officially send charitable help to the needy in Morocco. Rural schools benefit the most, sending more girls to school by donating free school supplies, winter apparel and sponsoring food for the orphans. Also, we support disabled children from low and no income families, in partnership with US organization we were able to donate 200 custom-made wheelchairs to children suffering from cerebral palsy. Now we are so excited to raise funds to set up the first and only wheelchairs assembly facility in Morocco and North Africa but need money. We are all volunteers and would love to obtain funding for this project, since the need is overwhelming to the point, where thousands of people across the country are on waiting lists and the country's main facility can only produce 4 a month at best.

Now, people with disabilities in Morocco, with special cases, when there are emergencies, remote schools, educational programs for girls and orphans all know the Morocco Foundation. People are willing to help but most of us cannot afford the financial costs of certain projects. We have volunteers pouring in from all over the world inspired by our 100% philanthropic model where no money exchanges hands and nobody gets a payout. We do what we do for the sake of saving lives, giving hopes, opening doors, putting smiles on faces, showing that nothing is impossible…We do what we do for the love of humanity and our compassion towards our fellow humans. We just are lucky to have landed in the US, what if we were the one in need of assistance for being born disable, poor, orphaned? As a survivor myself, I feel grateful and forever in debt for being alive. So this is truly just a little bit of giving back.”