When the earth quakes, GEM responds.

The flight to Morocco was fairly empty, a couple of tentative tourists, the usual inquisitive journalist, the odd aid worker. The earthquake was only a few days old, the news fresh, the death toll rising. Michael, the founder of GEM (Global Empowerment Mission), had called me the day before, asking if I would join the team there, he was in Maui in critical funding meetings.

Majel met us in Marrakech, Conrad and myself. Conrad had been to Ukraine with me so I knew he could be useful. Majel is Michael’s right hand. Nothing gets past Majel.

She introduced us to the rest of the team; Tom, special Ops from the USA, Ayca and Adam from Turkey, now with considerable earth quake experience, Wictoria from our Polish HQ and Lionel, from France, with Moroccan roots. And then there was the essential assortment of local guides, and security. Security is less for us and more for the aid. Regardless if it is an expensive generator or an inexpensive bottle of cooking oil, people who are traumatized and have lost everything can understandably leap to some irrational behavior.

We all stayed in a house outside the city. It was basic. Very basic. As it should be. GEM is careful with donors dollars. We were given a bed to share, although Conrad took his sleeping bag and slept on the ground outside when the AC gave up. Four more special ops guys arrived after us and slept on the floor in the sitting room, they had no AC but they did have Baileys which they drank for breakfast, sensibly ensuring they dozed most of the way up the mountain, which one day turned out to be a 16 hour drive.

Our local teams would gather information about towns or villages that had been severely affected, and late into the night sacks of aid would be assembled so that early in the morning our convoy of trucks could head out.

We would drive for hours, through broken earth-quaked countryside, sometimes being passed by a procession of Moroccan military vehicles, kicking up clouds of red dust, at other times we would overtake meandering, weary donkeys hauling almost anything up the hillside on their teacup sized hooves.

Some of these ‘missions’ would be peaceful, a village high up in the Atlas mountains where the air was chilled and the shepherds followed their flocks, and women with their head and faces conservatively covered, with babies strapped to their backs, would politely and patiently wait in a line to be handed a sack, heaving with essentials (GEM evaluates very carefully what goes into these, as in each country or region the needs are varied). These gentle people would even bring out a steaming plate of couscous around which we would gather and eat standing together, thanking one another for the shared generosity.

But some of the ‘mission’s’ could become rowdy, quickly. In Ukraine, to avoid this, we stage the vast 18 wheeler’s carrying aid outside the distribution areas and sprinter vans or cars take in smaller amounts so as not to attract an uprising of people, or indeed a missile being fired by an angry enemy, (aid trucks are a worthy target). Conrad noted that whilst we felt the same heart ache during our time in Morocco we did not feel the same fear. We were not going to be shot at.

However, here on the outskirts of Marrakech, unlike in the mountains, attempting to simply deliver hygiene kits things became so chaotic that even local police and our security friends could not calm the chaos of hundreds of very desperate people surging forward in the hope of help.

What became clear quickly was that a lot of aid was making its way up the mountains (and far too much plastic) and not enough was reaching the city. What was also clear was that Global Empowerment Mission were already planning Phase Two. Engaging a local team to begin building sanitary stations (carefully, so as not to upset the delicate and traditional Moroccan way of life). And this is the brilliance of the foundation, not just reacting with an immediate response but remaining on the ground afterwards, (just follow their decades long relationship with Haiti.)

One evening as the sun was setting and we began another curvy drive back down the mountains we stopped beside a little village, now covered in makeshift tents. Conrad got out, holding a football above his head and small dusty kids sprang out of nowhere, excited and laughing, running towards him, jumping up, wrapping their arms around his neck, and snuggling into his waist as he kicked the ball and began a game with them. ‘Shukran’ they shouted ‘Shukran’ and then, a little more timidly, they tested out ‘Thankyou. Thankyou.’

Shukran & thankyou to anyone who has donated to this Moroccan mission, I hope in reading this you understand that donations to GEM really do reach the right hands.