Courtesy Photo | Warrant Officer Luis Orozco, a reserve platoon commander and intelligence officer with...... read more read more
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Story by: Maj. Paul Greenberg
TAN TAN, Morocco — First Sgt. Ray Sockwell, the Task Force African Lion senior enlisted advisor, stood up and addressed the officers and staff noncommissioned officers at a meeting just before dinner here May 21.
"Some Marines are going to the orphanage out in town on Wednesday to deliver diapers, baby formula and other items they need," said Sockwell. "We're passing the hat around and pitching in to buy these supplies. This is completely voluntary."
He picked up his eight-point Marine Corps cover from the table, took out his wallet, and put in a crisp, blue 200 Dirham note, worth approximately $23.
He passed the hat to his left.
Within several days, the Marines had raised more than $650, with help from U.S. Navy sailors and U.S. Army and Air National Guardsmen from Utah and Tennessee.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Dover, a reserve Marine from Company A, Intelligence Support Battalion in San Diego, used the money to buy more than 1,100 children's diapers, 75 adult diapers, eight industrial-sized bags of laundry detergent and more than 60 boxes of nutritional formula.
Dover, a California resident who recently adopted a child from an orphanage in Russia, made the decision to visit a Moroccan orphanage after doing a Google search to find one located in Agadir, where he is based for his reserve summer annual training during exercise African Lion 2010, a month-long joint and combined exercise led by Marine Forces Africa, with the majority of troops coming from Marine Forces Reserve units throughout the United States.
"I thought this [orphanage] was something that could get us involved in the local community," said Dover. "I thought this was something we could do, and should do; not just as Marines, but as human beings."
Dover made the recommendation to his platoon commander, Warrant Officer Luis Orozco.
An intelligence officer in the Marine Corps Reserve and police officer in civilian life, Orozco immediately liked the idea.
"I figured that these kids would remember this for the rest of their lives," said Orozco. "For most of them, this is the first time they ever saw Americans. It is great that they [the Moroccan Ministry of Public Health] were so receptive."
Along with representatives from the Tazzanine Association for the Aid of Abandoned Children, the Marines made their way to the Tazzanine Orphanage in the outskirts of Agadir on the morning of May 26.
They were joined by Dr. Mohammed Boutbaou, the executive director for the Agadir region Ministry of Public Health.
According to Boutbaou, the orphanage population is comprised of about 70 infants, children, adolescents and young adults, mostly from Agadir and surrounding villages.
Boutbaou said that the children were in the orphanage for a variety of reasons, mostly due to the parents' poverty, death or imprisonment.
About half of the residents struggle with various physical and mental handicaps. Finding parents to take in the children with handicaps is difficult, according to Boutbaou. Many of these children therefore remain at Tazzanine indefinitely, receiving care from the orphanage staff and volunteers.
"It's very good to see the Marines and U.S. military here, and it's also good to see them in another way," said Nadia Chafchaouni, the president of the Tazzanine Association. "We see news from Iraq, and the images of American soldiers with their rifles and equipment. This is very good to have them here, to sit down with them and drink tea."
Chafchaouni expressed her thanks to the Marines, and was surprised to learn that Task Force personnel purchased the items with out-of-pocket donations, as this gesture was not an official component of the exercise.
Chafchaouni explained that the orphanage relies on philanthropy to function on a day-to-day basis. More than 80 percent of their operating budget is derived from private funding, with the remainder coming from the Moroccan government.
The biggest challenge the orphanage faces, according to Chafchaouni, is a lack of qualified specialists in fields such as special education, speech and language pathology and physical therapy to work with more than 30 patients in the orphanage with cognitive and physical disabilities ranging from mild to severe.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Mick Flynn, a career reserve Marine on the Task Force staff, plans to work with humanitarian organizations when he returns home to South Carolina next month to procure funding to hire specialists for the orphanage.
"We did not know people in the American military before, and this is a good introduction," said Claudine Joundy, a Belgian volunteer at Tazzanine
Joundy has been actively engaged in humanitarian work in Morocco for more than 30 years. Along with a team of 25 Moroccan women, Joundy helped to establish the Tazzanine as an official non-governmental organization in 2003.
"We had different preconceptions of American military before today because of the war in the Middle East," said Joundy. "But this has helped to change our idea."
The Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen of Task Force African Lion have just completed the first phase of the exercise, which included a five-day humanitarian civic action in rural southwestern Moroccan villages.
U.S. military medical personnel, working with Moroccan Army and public health doctors, treated more than 1,100 patients at free clinics for issues ranging from skin conditions to gastrointestinal illnesses. Utah National Guard dentists pulled teeth and filled cavities, and optometrists examined patients and issued free eyeglasses. National Guard veterinarians also vaccinated hundreds of sheep, goats and cows for local farmers.
Exercise African Lion is scheduled to end in mid-June, and the reserve service members will head back to the States and return to their civilian lives and careers.
However, U.S. troops are scheduled to return next summer to continue with their work and further develop the bond between the United States and Morocco.
"African Lion is getting larger and more complex every year," said Brig. Gen. James Lariviere, the commanding general of 4th Marine Division, during a recent visit to his troops here. "Both the United States and Moroccan governments see this as an important engagement opportunity. We already have an officer here conducting an advance reconnaissance for African Lion 2011, [which] we anticipate will be larger than this year's exercise."
| Date Taken: | 05.21.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 05.28.2010 05:32 |
| Story ID: | 50413 |
| Location: | TAN TAN, MA |
| Web Views: | 207 |
| Downloads: | 102 |
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