Morocco adds 43,000 summer camp places, but demand still overwhelms supply

Morocco will expand its summer camp program to more than 210,000 children in 2026, but the increase will still leave millions without access as closed centres, rising transport costs and regional disparities continue to restrict capacity.

Youth, Culture and Communication Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid announced the target before the House of Representatives, up from about 167,000 beneficiaries in 2025.

More than 150 national associations and about 500 local branches are expected to take part, with the program extending further into rural and mountainous regions and introducing dedicated provisions for children with disabilities.

For the first time, beneficiaries of a school dropout prevention program will also be included through a partnership with the Ministry of National Education.

The expansion is not simply numerical, according to Mohamed Gliouine, president of the National Camping University. Camps, he told Hespress English, are being recast as “spaces for shaping life and character” rather than places where children are merely sent to pass the summer.

Digital platforms are being introduced to manage the program, while organisers say the broader geographical reach should help reduce some of the inequalities built into a system still concentrated heavily along the coast.

Gliouine described the 210,000 target as “ambitious and realistic”, but stopped short of presenting it as sufficient.

“Despite its significance, it still falls short of the growing demand that camps receive year after year,” he said, calling for more places and new centres.

For Said El Azzouzi, president of the Chouala Association for Education and Culture, the headline figure risks obscuring the scale of exclusion. With about seven million children theoretically eligible, he said, the program reaches only a fraction of those who might want or need a place.

“The real value of this number depends on whether it reflects actual field conditions,” El Azzouzi told Hespress English. “Camps should be a right, not a privilege.”

He identified four pressures undermining the system: the decline in educational quality when camps are treated as seasonal entertainment rather than long-term learning projects; the closure of historic centres, which has reduced capacity; transport costs increasingly passed on to families and associations; and catering contracts that can reward the cheapest bidder rather than the best food.

The geography of the program compounds the problem. Many established camp centres remain clustered near the coast, while inland towns, mountain communities and rural provinces face a persistent shortage of spaces.

For former campers who later became counsellors, the argument over capacity is also an argument over what children lose when they are shut out.

Nadir Jaai attended his first camp at nine, returned for more than seven seasons and joined the leadership ranks in 2021. Camps, he said, taught him “independence, self-reliance and the ability to express myself confidently”.

He stayed because he felt responsible for protecting the institution that had shaped him. “These spaces are too valuable to disappear,” he said. “Their mission should not end with one generation.”

Douaa Tayeb followed a similar path, spending six seasons at camp from the age of 10 before becoming a counsellor. The experience strengthened her confidence and social skills, she said, although today’s children arrive with lives shaped far more heavily by smartphones and social media.

“The way they experience camp may be different,” she said, “even if the core values remain the same.”