El Centro Conjunto de la Memoria para la Democracia y la Paz anuncia su homenaje nacional a Leila Mezian Benjelloun
- Convinced of the need to spread the culture of democracy and peace;
- Insisting on the obligation to advocate the universal dimension of human values;
- Defending the importance :
* coexistence between peoples and cultures to overcome differences in identity, language, religion...
* dialogue as an essential means of overcoming these differences;
- Approving the contribution of several official and civil personalities and institutions to the consolidation of the values of living together between individuals and States
- and, having regard to the role of "Morocco of equity and reconciliation" in the elevation and consolidation of human values as a land of peace, harmony, dialogue and coexistence within the framework of the human commonality and perfect equality between human beings
The Centre of Common Memory for Democracy and Peace decides to pay a vibrant national tribute to Mrs. Leila Mezian Benjelloun, President of the BMCE Foundation for Education and Environment and President of the Dr. Leila Mezian Foundation.
This tribute will be organized on Monday, November 15, 2021, at 7 pm, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the 10th edition of the international festival of cinema and common memory of Nador.
It should be recalled that Dr. Leila Mezian Benjelloun graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Madrid, she continued her studies at the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona to complete her speciality in Ophthalmology.
After working as an assistant to Professor Joaquim Barraquer in Barcelona, she went on to practice at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital in New York under the supervision of renowned ophthalmic surgeons such as Dr. Castro Viejo and Dr. Byron Smith.
Dr. Leila Mezian Benjelloun has practiced medicine for more than 25 years in Moroccan public hospitals as well as in her own surgical clinic, while participating in numerous international conferences and symposia.
President of the Alaouite Organisation for the Protection of the Blind (OAPAM) in Casablanca and of the Moroccan Red Crescent, she was also Vice-President of the Moroccan Doctors' Association and President of the BENJELLOUN MEZIAN Foundation, which specialises in the restoration of National Monuments.
Since 1992, she has been devoting all her efforts to her new passion, which is education. She became president of the BMCE Bank Foundation in 1995, whose two main missions are the promotion of education integrated with sustainable development and the contribution to the preservation of the environment. She leads a team dedicated to the schooling of children in rural areas through the "Medersat..com" schools, which has enabled the creation of more than a hundred rural community schools, including pre-school, throughout the Kingdom of Morocco and abroad, and more concretely in Senegal, Congo Brazzaville and Mali. On 30 July 2016, Dr LEILA MEZIAN received from His Majesty King Mohammed VI the Wissam Alaouite, a high distinction rewarding her unwavering commitment to Education in Morocco. In 2013, she was selected for the first "2013 Wise Award" among 500 candidates of the Qatar Foundation's World Innovation Summit for Education. In May 2016, alongside her husband, she received the Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award in New York and on November 12, 2019 the Visionary Personalities Award from the Middle-East Institute in Washington.
In October 2012, she received the Grand Prize of Amazigh Culture from the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM) and in the summer of 2016 she was decorated by His Majesty King Mohamed VI with the Wissam El Aarch.
Dr. Leila Mezian Benjelloun was born in Valencia, Spain, and married to the financial magnate and businessman Othman Benjelloun, CEO of the Finance Group, Com and BMCE Bank of Africa, since 1960. She has two children (Dounia, film producer, and Kamal, anthropologist and environmentalist), and created a private museum in memory of her father, the late Marshal Mohamed AMEZIANE, who had the merit of forming the Royal Armed Forces of Morocco, on May 27, 2006, in Beni Anzar, as well as a library specialised in North African and Amazigh studies, also in Beni Anzar.
Dr. Leila was the promoter of the Catedra Internacional de Cultura Amazigh, in collaboration with the Euro-Arab University, as well as of the Biblioteca Amazigh within it. She was also the promoter of the great Amazigh exhibition entitled 'La Granada Zirí del siglo XI y el universo Bereber' at the Alhambra Palace of Carlos V in the city of Granada, which the Queen of Spain Letizia Ortiz inaugurated on 5 December 2019.
Centre of Common Memory For Democracy and Peace
The President : Abdesslam Bouteyeb