Humanising Education - A Conversation with Karima Kadaoui

We're ending this final epsiode of 2024 in a beautiful place with
Karima Kadaoui sharing in some co-reflections with me about the
trustful and humanising society that she is seeing emerge in
Morocco and beyond. It became really clear to me during this
conversation with Karima, that the way that we talk about the
work we are doing is a really important choice. This is because
it sets up frames and expectations that really affect how we do
the work. So for that reason, I'm not going to say much about the
incredible work that is happening across communities, schools and
government ministries across Morocco through the Tamkeen process
as Karima describes it much more beautifully than I ever could.


Karima co-founded Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human
Development in Morocco in 2009 and holds the responsibility of
its executive presidency. She refers to her organisation as a
facilitating-dissolving structure living, with all its
partners-in-flourishing, the answer to the question "how can our
schools, communities, organisations, societal systems and
societies be the expression and manifestation of our humanity;
the shared essence that defines us and connects us to each other,
to our natural world and the whole beyond our conscious grasp?


Karima's Tamkeen process weaved and was woven with the threads of
her 25 years experience working in private, public and social
sectors. She worked with top tier companies in a big 5 management
consultancy and as the associate senior consultant of a
territorial development consultancy she co-founded.  In the
Moroccan government, she worked on public policy and governance
in quality of the advisor to the Minister of Employment,
Vocational Training and Housing.  Her experiences in NPOs
working with women suffering infra-human conditions in industries
and with a community in a major shanty town have profoundly
marked her.


Karima is a full member of the Club of Rome. She is also a board
member and advisor to Imal Initiative for Climate and Development
the first independent non-profit North African climate think
tank, as well to Africa Voices Dialogue "a space where the voices
of Africa’s educators and learners are seen, heard and loved".


As we discuss in the conversation, the paper written by Karima
and Louis Klein is entitled ‘Realising metamorphic transformation
in the mirror of Tamkeen: Growing a shared understanding from
co‐reflected lived experiences’. It can be found in the journal,
Systems Research and Behavioral Science 41(5):738-749, August
2024 and is linked here.


Karima also mentions the poem, Sept saisis par l’hiver’, by René
Char:


Extract: ‘Ma Feuille Vineuse: Les mots qui vont surgir savent de
nous ce que nous ignorons d’eux. Un moment nous serons l’équipage
de cette flotte composée d’unités rétives, et le temps d’un
grain, son amiral. Puis le large la reprendra, nous laissant à
nos torrents limoneux et à nos barbelés givrés.’ From Chants de
la Balandrane, Gallimard, 1977, p. 16. -
https://www.gallimard.fr/catalogue/chants-de-la-balandrane/9782070298303


Website: https://tamkeencommunity.org/


LinkedIn: @karima-kadaoui -
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karima-kadaoui/