Essaouira luxury beach hotel in Morocco

Planet

Our construction, built of locally sourced natural materials such as stone, clay, straw, bamboo etc, blends harmoniously into the landscape and has had minimal impact on the environment. We have daily proof that its presence has created positive change and are constantly working with the local community to improve, amongst other things, environmental waste issues. We have started our own basic recycling and are encouraging the families who work with us, to do the same.

Since creating our gardens, and planting several native trees and shrubs, many birds have come to winter with us, frogs have races in the swimming pool, whilst swallows dip in and out, and tortoises love the shady spots under the fast growing Mimosas.

Our electricity, hot water, swimming pool pump, and Hammam are all powered by the sun -  with only a little boost from the generator in the evening!

With the help of a wonderful young English Vet, we are setting up a charity, to enable us to treat and adopt stray or ill treated animals in our surrounding area. This is our greatest challenge and we would so love to be able to do more for them. We are now starting to offer volunteering placements and vacations to those who would like to help us in this rewarding cause. (see below for more info on what we hope to achieve with the animal charity)

We encourage our younger guests, prior to their visit, to prepare simple visual presentations on topics such as recycling and animal husbandry, to show to local children during visits to their schools.

People

In building the hotel, we are proud to be able to say that we have changed the lives of many, humans and animals alike. We provide a livelihood for several local families, as well as for the fishermen, who can count on their daily catch being very much appreciated by our guests! Other ingredients for our delicious freshly cooked food, are sourced locally - vegetables from our own garden, and fresh produce from the local souks, thus supporting local farmers.

Our guests, particularly those with children, are encouraged to visit local families, still living in rudimentary houses, with no running water and very basic hand crafted furniture. We find this to be a mutually beneficial experience, and the locals´happiness is often a real eye-opener!

We, and our guests, support the women's argan oil cooperatives, by using their products in our Hammam, thus helping local women to gain independence and respect in the community. Guests often like to make a pit stop to see the women at work, en route to us.

Children who stay with us are given the option to visit local schools to help improve the pupils knowledge of English through songs, dance and drama.

We are setting up a charity, to enable us to treat and adopt stray or ill treated animals in our surrounding area. Alongside giving those most in need, loving homes here in our sanctuary, we hope to implement a programme of neutering and vaccination for dogs and cats in the local area. We also hope to be able to offer workshops for local children, teaching them the basics of animal husbandry, and how to forge a good working relationship with their dogs, donkeys and horses etc, without having to resort to violence and abuse. We would also like to set up a ´buddy system´, whereby each child is given responsibility for a dog, cat or donkey in their village (which has previously been checked, and vaccinated by our vets) and they would then take care of the day to day needs of their animal, ie feeding etc (we provide the food) and alerting us to any illness etc. We obviously can´t give every stray animal a home in our sanctuary, but we hope at least to create a circle of awareness amongst the local community.