TheCatholicSpirit.com
Official Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Wednesday, 04 November 2009
Moroccan who supports unwed mothers receives $1 million prize

By Maria Wiering

opus_prize_winnermug.jpgAïcha Ech Channa, 68, vividly recalls the circumstances that compelled her to found a charitable organization to help unwed mothers in Casablanca, Morocco.

It was 1985, and she was working in the Moroccan Ministry of Social Affairs. She daily encountered women and children who were affected by the society’s pressures for unwed mothers to abandon their newborn children, whether or not the mother wanted to keep the child.

In Moroccan culture at the time, children born outside of wedlock were not recognized with a family name or a place in society. Unwed mothers were similarly outcast as suspected prostitutes.

One day, a young woman emerged from the rain outside. She was pregnant and unmarried, but wanted to keep her baby. However, her father didn’t know she was pregnant, and her mother wasn’t talking to her, referring to her instead as "the hated one."

Ech Channa

Ech Channa and a co-worker risked punishment by visiting the woman’s parents and urging them to support their daughter’s desire to keep her child. Against the odds and their cultural mores, the parents relented. The young woman had a little girl.

Ech Channa worked with others to establish an organization to help unwed mothers, and Association Solidarité Féminine was born. In the 24 years since, the social enterprise has worked to empower women to be self-reliant and support them as they defy cultural precedent. Although laws have changed, not all hearts have, Ech

Channa told The Catholic Spirit through a French translator.

Years later, Ech Channa again met the mother, who repeated her thanksgiving for Ech Channa’s work and told her that her daughter was in medical school.

opus.jpg$1 million honor

For her unrelenting commitment to this cause in Morocco, Ech Channa was awarded the 2009 Opus Prize Nov. 4 at an event held at Minnesota Orchestra Hall.

The $1 million prize is the sixth annual prize awarded by the Minnetonka-based Opus Prize Foundation. Two other finalists were awarded $100,000. The honorees will use the money to further the work of their faith-motivated humanitarian organizations.

The foundation was established in 1994 by Gerry Rauenhorst, the founding chairman of the real-estate development company Opus Corporation. The first prize was awarded in 2004 and has since honored 16 individuals from the United States and around the world.

Each year, the Opus Prize Foundation partners with a university to award the prizes. This year, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul administered the selection process and co-conferred the award.

Opus Prize winner Aïcha Ech Channa speaks passionately about her own life and her work with unwed mothers in Casablanca, Morocco. - Dianne Towalski / The Catholic Spirit

The prize is meant not only to honor the recipient, but to inspire students to aspire to work for social justice, said Amy Sunderland, executive director of the foundation.

The foundation has partnered exclusively with Catholic universities thus far because of Catholic social justice principles; however, the foundation may partner with other faith-based schools in the future, Sunderland said. Past honorees include non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians.

Although the prize recipient may have roots in any faith, this is the first year it has been awarded to a Muslim. The prize money is funded exclusively through the Opus Prize Foundation.

Motivated by faith

Ech Channa clearly recognizes the hand of God in Solidarité Féminine’s success and its ability to change hearts toward women and children in a vulnerable position.

Her faith has sustained her through condemnation by conservative Muslim leaders in Morocco who say her work perpetuates prostitution. However, Moroccan King Mohammed VI generously supports her work, which indicates a gain in its cultural acceptance.

Ech Channa’s work is also motivated by unique circumstances in her young life. Her father died when she was 3 years old, and her infant sister died shortly thereafter.

Her mother raised her alone; her father’s friends made it possible for Ech Channa to attend a French school, which was considered better than a Moroccan school.

After her mother remarried, she — without her husband’s knowledge — sent 12-year-old Aïcha from Marrakech to Casablanca by bus to escape her husband’s desire for Aïcha to quit school.

"I

 grew up very quickly," Ech Channa said of this time in her life.

Her mother joined her in Casablanca three years later, and Ech Channa found work when she was 16 as a social work secretary. She describes the event as one of many "little birdies from God," as it was the catalyst for the chain of events that would lead her to discover the unrecognized world of unwed mothers and abandoned children.

One abandoned girl told Ech Channa that she didn’t know what love was because she had only experienced hate.

A mother of four and grandmother of four, Ech Channa relayed a heart-wrenching experience she had shortly after returning to her work at the Ministry of Social Affairs after a maternity leave. An unwed woman came to abandon her child, but was nursing her baby, which was a clear sign to Ech Channa that she hadn’t wanted to leave it. The baby was the same age as Ech Channa’s newborn.

When the authorities arrived to take the baby away, they took the suckling baby from her so quickly that her breast milk spurt all over the baby’s face, causing it to scream. The memory haunted Ech Channa and motivated her to become a social worker.

Today, Solidarité Féminine trains more than 50 women each year in literacy, human rights, cooking, baking, sewing, fitness services and accounting. Women also receive daily child care, and medical, social, psychological and legal support. It includes three day-care centers and training schools, two restaurants, four kiosks and a fitness center and spa.

Operated on an annual budget of about $500,000, Solidarité Féminine is supported through the generosity of Moroccan, interfaith and international partners.

Throughout Ech Channa’s social work career, she has worked with and been supported by Christians, including religious sisters.

The award has caused Ech Channa many sleepless nights due to the weight of the responsibility it entails, she said. However, she intends for the prize money to help Solidarité Féminine financially maintain itself for years to come, as well as inspire other countries with similar social stigmas to have courage to change their culture.

She views the prize as another "birdie from God" affirming her perseverance, as well as a hand reaching out to her from across the ocean, bridging people and cultures in love, she said.

— Homes of Light and Life Association. The organization cares for physically and mentally disabled children and educates or provides day care services for children in Bogotá, Colombia.

Father Stapel, a Franciscan priest, is co-founder and president of Fazenda da Esperança

— Farms of Hope. He has established more than 60 therapeutic communities in 10 countries to help people with drug and alcohol addictions rebuild their lives. He lives in Guaratinguetá, Brazil.