Farmer Aicha Bourkib kisses Ivanka Trump's hand, the daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, in the province of Sidi Kacem, Morocco, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, as Ivanka Trump tours an olive grove collective where local women farmers are benefitting from changes allowing them to inherit land. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
SIDI KACEM (AP) – Ivanka Trump says families, communities and countries flourish when women are invested in and included in the economy.
President Donald Trump’s daughter and White House adviser saw real life examples in Morocco on Thursday when she met four women who are benefiting from changes that allow them to own land.
Ivanka Trump spearheads a U.S. drive to help women in developing countries with skills training, access to capital and land ownership.
One of the women, Aicha Bourkib, embraced Ivanka Trump and kissed her hands as the group met in an olive grove. The 59-year-old housewife and mother of four cultivates olive trees and vegetables on land she recently bought.
Bourkib also has two cows and wants to create a dairy cooperative in her village. Farmer Aicha Bourkib talks to Ivanka Trump’s hand, the daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, in the province of Sidi Kacem, Morocco, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, as Ivanka Trump tours an olive grove collective where local women farmers are benefitting from changes allowing them to inherit land. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Ivanka Trump, the daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump meets women during a ceremony in the province of Sidi Kacem, Morocco, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, at an olive grove collective where Trump met with local women farmers who are benefitting from changes allowing them to inherit land. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
I have a soft spot for Morocco. My father and his parents escaped to a refugee camp near Casablanca in 1940, as the Nazis were overrunning Belgium, where my father grew up. He lived in the refugee camp for five years, until the war ended. The Arab residents were kind and understanding and didn’t give the Jewish refugees any trouble even though they were in danger of losing their own lives during the days of Hitler’s African campaign.
I have a soft spot for Morocco. My father and his parents escaped to a refugee camp near Casablanca in 1940, as the Nazis were overrunning Belgium, where my father grew up. He lived in the refugee camp for five years, until the war ended. The Arab residents were kind and understanding and didn’t give the Jewish refugees any trouble even though they were in danger of losing their own lives during the days of Hitler’s African campaign.