Class 55 The Power of Surroundership: Lessons in Community and Leadership from Rural Morocco October 27, 2026 By Class55 Share: Today, Class 55’s heartstrings were tugged and eyes prickled as we listened to the girls at Project SOAR chant “I am strong, I am smart, I am capable, I am a leader, I am a feminist, Girl Power!”. The same swelling of emotion was felt by the class as we clapped along to the racing drum and jubilant chants of a Berber song shared with us by the woman of the Atlas Foundation. In the silence as the chants and song faded, Class 55 experienced the true power of surroundership and community to drive durable change. The day started as we left the city limits of Marrakesh and made our way to the High Atlas Foundation in the village of Akrich, with the landscape shifting to red rock with a smattering of vegetation. As Class 55 passed by clay brick walls topped with broken shards of glass bottles for security and turned a corner, a quaint nursery appeared. Mariam Ait Hfid (Program Manager, High Atlas Foundation) and Abderrahim Beddah (Akrich Nursery Caretaker) proudly paraded a variety of fruit and nut sapling trees, as well as medicinal herbs, being grown in the nursery such as fig, pomegranate, lemon, carob, argan, and mother’s plant, in front of Class 55. As we inhaled the scent of the herbs, we learned that these tree saplings would be distributed to small-scale farmers, especially women, around the country to grow cash crops and improve their economic status. Mariam explained that the High Atlas Nursery program focuses on providing native trees and medicinal herbs to farmers to support capacity-building for growing, harvesting, processing, and selling products to support sustainable rural agricultural development.Akrich Nursery, a House of Life Project, is extremely unique because it is a facilitated free loan of land by the Jewish community of a burial site of the seven-hundred-year-old tomb of Rabbi Raphael Hacohen used to establish organic fruit tree and medicinal plant nurseries for the benefit of Muslim farming communities. Abderrahim’s family has voluntarily cared for the cemetery for three generations. Together, Mariam’s and Abderrahim’s presentation reminded Class 55 of the lessons learned about community during our Chico seminar. High Atlas Foundation’s work is a shining example of how community matters because it delivers both individual and collective resilience. Within the High Atlas Nursery Program, small-scale farmers find a place of belonging and identity, emotional and financial support, reduced isolation, and increased confidence via access to resources to grow their small business. In addition, the larger Moroccan community experiences shared problem-solving, mutual aid during crises such as the 2023 earthquake, and faster recovery from economic disruptions. When asked about how she builds trust in new communities High Atlas Foundation enters, Mariam wisely said, “in order for a community to trust you, you must speak its language and listen first”.We closed out our time at Akrich Nursery by helping plant lavender, geraniums, wormwood, rosemary, pomegranates, and false pepper trees. As we gently pressed each plant into the hallowed Jewish burial ground where it would go on to give life and economic prosperity to Muslim farmers, we were reminded that the real strength of community comes from diversity and shared ownership. After Akrich Nursery, the Class moved onward and southward, jostling into the center of the village, Ashbrou, and went into a clay building full of the promising scent of a delicious lunch. As we entered the building, five women sat in a row tangled up in an assembly line process of taking raw sheep’s wool and transforming it into intricate rugs. Two walls covered in looms carried in-progress rugs with one wall a view of the prized completed rugs. One woman named Samara explained the painstaking and laborious process to wash, comb, card, spin, and weave the raw wool into a prized kilim. As Class 55 sat impressed by the speed, efficiency, and beauty of the process, Samara told the heavier history of how they acquired the talent and deft hand to produce the kilims. Each of these women, not afforded the luxury of a formal education, was married off in an arranged marriage, often while still children themselves, to men in other villages. These child brides, isolated and alone, were dependent upon the treatment of their husbands. The designs woven into the kilim would be one of the only ways they would be able to communicate their treatment back to their mothers. Thanks to High Atlas Foundation’s women empowerment program, these disparate, isolated women were provided a pathway to develop confidence, self-agency, and business knowledge in artisanal markets. This rug-making cooperative illustrated a key California Agricultural Leadership Foundation concept known as surroundership – a practice of intentional community and mutual support within a cohort or peer group supporting transformative growth impossible in isolation. As Class 55 transitioned upstairs from the workshop, Moroccan hospitality was on full display as we were invited to take off our shoes and sit at three square tables. A traditional and delicious Moroccan meal was laid before us and we were treated to chicken, a rice dish, fava beans, a vegetable tajine, traditional bread, and sweet cake paired with the usual mint tea. After the meal, Samara shared with us the transformational story of her vulnerable girlhood to an empowered woman, made possible by the High Atlas Foundation. With her mother proudly looking on, Samara spoke with a soft strength of the struggles she endured growing up. Losing her father at 13, she became the leading force in her household. She left school to help earn a living, was married off at 15, and was pregnant with her first of three sons at 16. As Samara recounted the hard days, providing for her new family and caring for her brother, sisters, and mother, she recounted how High Atlas Foundation provided her with a sense of personal and economic agency. As Samara described the pressure and friction from elders in her community placed on her as she grew from an isolated and marginalized young girl to an empowered woman zipping around the village on a moped, her story was a real-life example of CALF’s “Diamond Model”. In the Diamond Model, transformation does not happen in a vacuum; it occurs at the threshold where discomfort, risk, and pressure meet. Samara’s courage to continue on despite the village elders’ disapproval was a reminder to the Class to dig deeper into where our growth feels the most difficult. Because, ultimately, our transformation into stronger leaders requires the friction of shedding habituated behaviors, former identities, and comfort.Our afternoon with the ladies of the High Atlas Foundation’s women empowerment climaxed with a Berber song of thumping drums, clapping hands, and lilting lyrics. In that moment, Class 55 was swept up in the collective effervescence of their unabashed joy and freedom. And we left asking ourselves, what friction must we overcome to transform? To finish the day, our tour vans wound and weaved through the eastern part of Marrakesh to Project SOAR. Welcomed by the vibrant and eloquent Soukaina Zailhour—a 22-year-old just days away from turning 23—Soukaina proudly shared Project SOAR’s mission to empower girls 12–18 years old from underserved rural or semi-rural areas who are highly vulnerable to child marriage and gender-based violence. Project SOAR provides free-of-charge workshops focused on five foundations: Value, Voice, Body, Rights, and Path. As a girl completes each module, she grows in her confidence to stand on her own, enabling her to take control of her physical and mental health, complete her secondary education, avoid child marriage, and acquire useful skills for future employment. Soukaina is a graduate of the program and used the skills learned via Project SOAR to be instrumental in the effort to ban child marriage in Morocco. Today, Soukaina’s current focus is on ending period poverty that causes girls to drop out of school due to the lack of appropriate menstrual products, as well as the creation of an anonymous AI chatbot called Marwa that can answer questions related to menstruation, sexual health, and emotional wellbeing. As Soukaina’s students gathered to close out our time with Project SOAR, we joined the community of these courageous girls as we chanted with them, “I am strong, I am smart, I am capable, I am a leader, I am a feminist, Girl Power!”.Our experience at Project SOAR emphasized the critical importance of surroundership to drive change in difficult environments. Project SOAR is an example of leadership by an organization that builds a high-trust community of allies. Through the act of surroundership, young girls receive judgment-free psychological safety to take risks, fail, and revise limiting beliefs. The power of surroundership was evident in the confidence each girl had standing in front of the class bravely saying, in a society that might tell her otherwise, “I matter and my voice should be heard.”Reflecting on our time with both the High Atlas Foundation and Project SOAR, Class 55 witnessed firsthand how surroundership and intentional community foster transformative leadership. From the resilience rooted in the nursery at Akrich, woven into the artisanal rug cooperative, to the fierce empowerment within the girls of Project SOAR, each encounter demonstrated that real progress is not achieved alone. By surrounding individuals with trust, shared purpose, and unwavering support, these initiatives create spaces where hardship turns into agency. As we carry these profound lessons forward, we are reminded that true leadership lies in lifting up those around us, embracing the discomfort of growth, and building communities where every voice can thrive. We extend our deepest gratitude to our remarkable speakers who warmly hosted us and shared their stories, as well as to the generous CALF donors whose incredible support makes this international journey possible.With gratitude,Jon, Jared, Morgan and Class 55
Mia Mirassou October 28, 2026 at 2:55 pm Thank you all for sharing your journey! The blogs are inspiring, educational, and heartfelt. Wishing you safe travels, and look forward to what’s next.