On the 45th anniversary of the report No Limits to Learning, we are exploring the transformative power of learning. We talked to Karima Kadaoui, member of The Club of Rome and Co-Founder of the Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development in Morocco to learn about her approach to learning based on co-creation and co-reflection. 

What inspired you to get involved in this work? 

It started with questions, gratitude, and beauty—the beauty we realise in a garden. The flower grows by itself; we can only create the conditions for that to happen. And we can only create these conditions together with the garden. I realised that when it comes to learning in a community and in society at large, we are both the garden and the gardener. As such, we are able to move from the idea of designing and implementing solutions towards co-creating them. 

How did the Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development start?  

We asked why, despite all the efforts, investments, and political will, the situation in Morocco regarding human development hadn’t improved, and in fact, human withering was growing. When we looked at the factors that sustain this disharmony, we started to look at ourselves, the language we spoke, and the kind of questions we were asking. This language was very much a language of “we cannot” and “it’s not possible.” Our questions were limited to looking at what was missing and what we were lacking. The society we experienced was taking shape, in our very questions. This experience of questioning our questions and co-reflecting our lived experiences among the co-founding members revealed the experience that we call Tamkeen.  

What is the Tamkeen experience that you talk about?  

The word Tamkeen in Arabic signifies a process of transformation that emanates from immanent potential. The root of the verb is defined as the root of Tamkeen itself, so the definition of the word is a gesture of coming back to the root. This root unfolds into a semantic field encompassing words like “potential,” “possibility,” “becoming able,” and a “safe place,” like the mother’s womb, where love and life blossom and transform their conditions for blossoming. 

How does the Tamkeen experience foster learning? 

The Tamkeen experience is learning in the broader sense of the word. It is not so much what we learn, but rather how we learn. Tamkeen is an experience of a mirror, in which we recognise beauty. We learn together to recognise the beauty in our communities, our societies, our natural world—and by recognising this beauty we realise it. This learning can manifest in traditional contexts like at school or university, and also in one’s neighbourhood, village, family, or with friends. The Tamkeen Community Foundation partners with schools, villages, and neighbourhoods. We also have partnerships with universities, research organisations, and the Ministry of Education in Morocco. These partners—whom we call partners in flourishing—come to us with questions. Rather than jumping to find answers to these questions, we co-reflect and grow a shared understanding in the mirror of Tamkeen and live the answers.  

Is there an example you would like to highlight?  

One of our first partners in flourishing in the Tamkeen experience was the neighbourhood community Hay Zouitina. A young man from the community shared with us how violence that used to be a daily or weekly part of life has almost disappeared now. He said “The houses are the same, the streets are the same, the people are the same. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. Our relationships have changed. Violence used to bring us together, now it is love.” When asked if he meant that before Tamkeen there was violence and now there is love, he answered, “No. Before there was love and today there is love. But before we did not express love with love.” 

This interview series is part of a collaboration between The Fifth Element initiative by The Club of Rome and the World Environmental Education Congress focusing on the regenerative power of learning. The report No Limits to Learning published in 1979 explores new forms of learning that are essential for addressing global issues and bridging the gap between the complexity of our world and our capacity to cope with it.