https://www.facebook.com/DisabledTouristGuide

disabled Tourist Guide

El Houssaine Ichen

Istgharghour,
Tounfite, Midelt, Morocco   
Tel: +212 6 62 62 45 24
E-mail: houssine.ichen@gmail.com

My name is El Houssaine Ichen but friends  call me  Houssaine. I’m 32 and live in Tounfite, which is a high but remote town in the beautiful Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters and  live a simple life with my parents in our basic family home. My parents were too poor to have me vaccinated and I caught polio at the age of three since then I have been paralyzed in my legs. I use leg braces and crutches for walking but as I have grown up with this handicap I do not let it slow me down. I  enjoy playing football, trekking and swimming. I am also a keen chess player and like music and riding my quad bike on the mountain trails that surround my home. 

I was educated in an institution for the physically challenged called "École Ibn al-Baytar" at Khemisset. The institution at that time was run by the British welfare fund "Save the Children” and I was sponsored by foster parents in the United Kingdom. I went to college in Khemisset and then to Itzer, a small town closer to my home. I have a BA in Modern Art, a diploma in Informatics Management, a specialized diploma in Informatics Development, and I am currently in the  third year of a T-S Webmaster degree. I have had six months professional training with the Khachabi company of Informatics, three months with M2d&s s.a.r.l and two months with Axon Distribution.I am a natural and self-taught linguist and speak Tamazight (the Chleuh Berber language), Arabic, English, French and basic Dutch.

Last year I started the Disabled Tourist Guide website offering assistance to tourists, both disabled and able bodied. The main site is under construction at http://disabledtouristguide.net/ I have established an ongoing presence on Facebook at ttps://www.facebook.com/DisabledTouristGuide. Currently the page has over 800 followers and I am using my networking skills to build up a community so I can enable disabled tourists to access and enjoy parts of Morocco they would not normally get to see. As an active member of the Couchsurfing community I host overseas guests in my sisters’ houses in Khenifra and Meknes, as well as hosting Couchsurfers in my village in Tounfite and arranging tours for clients.

Despite my academic qualifications I am aware that many Moroccan companies discriminate against the disabled an attitude I am campaigning to change at government level by raising awareness of the difficulties faced by disabled Moroccans in the workforce. It is my ambition to develop my own viable tourism business by providing information on accessible tourism for disabled people and persons with reduced mobility. 

The Disabled Tourists mission is to develop and champion disabled led tourism in Morocco I am now ready to accept fee paying customers and recommendations from agents who can direct them to me.  As a one man operation I am filling a tourism niche which has potential to help everyone.

Let me help you see beautiful Morocco!