August marks the beginning of a new and exciting project in coordination with our partner Foundation Amane pour la protection de l’enfance (FAPE) and funded by the US-Middle East Partnership Initiatve (MEPI) of the US government.

The Citizens’ Access to Registration project (CARE) aims to build on the success of our 2014 ID papers project that set out to map the individual and institutional challenges of birth registration in Taroudannt, Morocco. The culmination of this was our regional conference, “Child Protection and the Right to Civil Registration” in December 2014, attended by key stakeholders including local government and other statutory bodies, where a strategy was derived and a list of recommended policy changes was agreed. CARE aims to extend our impact over the coming year with a programme of activities that will push for legislative reform on a national level ensuring that all Moroccans are able to obtain legal identity and thus can fully participate in a more just society.

Without a legal civil status, and an official birth certificate, many Moroccan children are prevented access to education, health services, and future legal employment. This lack of identity condemns the child to a life of challenge, without access to basic rights they deserve. CARE aims to produce an increase in registration rates, increased citizen participation in registration and its reform, and positive legislative reform that will improve access to rights of Moroccan children over the coming years.

In creating multiple project teams across five regions and twenty-five provinces in the south of the country we plan to organise public awareness raising events, trainings for local civil servants and local NGOs, workshops with local statutory departments, as well as to provide individual registration support for complex cases. CARE will promote legal reform as well as the reform of the registration procedures, improving access to rights for children, and improving public awareness in relation to civil registration. This rights-based approach will ensure that the children from the most disadvantaged and marginalized families in southern Morocco have access to education, health services, and employment, ensuring equality and the promotion of a better future.