Loreto Fermoy's Inter Cultural Exchange with the Moroccan town of Asilah was “an amazing experience”.

Nine 5th year students from the Co Cork school were accompanied to Asilah by their principal, Mary Ryan, Sr Mary Burkart, IBVM, two teachers and the school secretary.

Asilah is a mission of the Spanish Province but the Irish flag flies through the work of Sr Liz Byrne, IBVM, who teaches English to local students, while Sr Piedad and Sr Marie teach them Spanish. The Sisters were also involved in successfully setting up a micro-credit scheme which is now run by a local man and woman.

Explaining the motivation for this student exchange, Sr Mary Burkart said she arranged the trip because she felt that “when people meet they find they share more than they differ about. I believe peace comes through mutuality, acceptance of difference and respect for human dignity.”

The dividends of such an exchange include greater cultural awareness and a more discerning understanding of media stereotyping. According to Sr Mary, “The students' reaction to the media's portrayal of Arabs and Islam was heartening. I feel these students will be more open and discerning in their interactions with other cultures and opinions; I look forward to the ways our world will change because of their insights.”

It was the first time Mary Ryan, the principal of Loreto Fermoy, had been outside Europe. It was also her first time “in a country which wasn’t, in name at least, a Christian country” and this contributed to it being “a fascinating experience.”

On their first day, the Co Cork students and the Moroccan students along with their teachers watched two films, one called ‘The Messenger’ and the other ‘Jesus’.

“I found the way the Moroccan students were prepared to discuss their beliefs very impressive. Here were young people who had very strong beliefs, who were pretty clear about them and were very happy to discuss them - which I think would be very different from your average Irish teenager’s position now,” Mary Ryan recalls. “Both groups of students felt that they had learnt a lot about each other, particularly about each other’s beliefs.”

“The two big issues that they discussed were religion and the position of women. These would not be discussed in mixed groups in Morocco. The discussion of beliefs forced some of our students to clarify what they did believe and what they had been taught.”

Amongst the projects visited was a visit to a mission in Tangiers run by the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s Sisters, where women who are not married and want to keep their children are provided with crèche facilities. According to Sr Mary, the children range from newborns to young toddlers. “The mothers are given the opportunity to work during the day and get a home together with their children. The Sisters also look after people who are infirm or have mental disabilities and need care.”

While in Tangiers, they also visited the American Legation, which gave the Irish delegation an insight into the history of Morocco and its interactions with the West. Morocco was the first country to give the newly independent America recognition and the students saw correspondence from George Washington relating to this.

Another project they visited focuses on upskilling women in sewing and dressmaking, which improves their employment prospects, as Morocco is a major exporter of fabricated goods to UK High Street market.

According to Sr Mary, “The sewing and dressmaking instructors, as well as the IT and Arabic literacy instructors are all Moroccan women. When we first took over the Mission from Spanish Franciscan Sisters this work was done by the Sisters and a Spanish lay woman. When I worked on the mission for a few months in 1997, there were no Moroccan women on the staff, but now they are running the programmes!”

But despite such progress, the Fermoy students had some difficulty with the position of women in society. “We had a few great chats about that with the girls themselves and also with the Moroccan boys”, recalls Mary Ryan.

“I remember one evening coming back in the taxi, the girls were appalled at the way the women were dressed, with their heads covered etc. And I said to them, isn’t it another kind of slavery when you look at girls younger than yourselves at home off to a disco on a Saturday night wearing something that looks like a t-shirt!”