Community day - our visit to Lycée Chawki 24th March

Every IBM Corporate Service Corps group undertakes a Community Service Day.
For Morocco 8 we visited a local high school to talk to the students there about careers. We divided into three teams and each team went into a class with around 35 students in their last year at High School; so average age about 17.

As we stood at the door to the classroom there was a buzz of chatter, talking and laughing. No teacher in sight. I though that the issue wouldn't be what to say - but how to be heard ! I was very wrong. As soon as we went in and said Bonjour there was general sushing and they were very attentive. Really great kids.

Each of the team gave a brief recap of their career - what  they thought they wanted to do, what they studied, how there ideas changed and what they do today.

So for instance for myself, at 16 I thought I'd be a social worker and chose Psychology as a Degree because I thought it was related (its not really); then after graduation I worked as a computer programmer (it paid well...) And now after several IT careers I'm in HR Learning !

We tried to get them each to stand up and say who they were an waht they enjoyed; many were very shy. Liberal offerings of Caramello Koalas helped somewhat.

Most of the pupils spoke good English (as well as French and Arabic...) and communications were easy.
I think they got a lot out of the session - but probably not as much satisfaction and happiness as us !!

Weekend 3 - Fez

It was great to get off the road and hit the train tracks for our weekend in the ancient imperial city of Fez. We travelled first class and it was very comfortable.





Theres is a lot to see in Fez - as Blogspot does not handle photo positioning well (otr at keast not for this blogger) I will  add some photo-collages done in another program soon.
For now, just some individual pictures...

Safi

Up bright and early on Thursday for a 7.30am departure to Safi to visit our client office there.

What a beautiful drive! We were in our 15 seat mini-bus and with only 10 of use there was plenty of room,we took the coast road. It was amazing-such a wonderful coast line so unspoilt. I imagine its cold in the Winter with strong winds off the Atlantic; but the area is popular with local tourists in the Summer. Often the fields go all the way to the coastline, lots of small scale agriculture with far more donkeys then vehicles. Many little group of animals (sheep or cows) with their own shepherd and using every available inch of ground.

It was great to meet the Near East Foundation staff at the Safi office and some of their local youth entrepreneurs. They were very inspiring – a young female potter who started a co-operative using the business skills learned at EYEM. A young man who started a copy shop and used Facebook groups  and messaging to raise awareness and build business.

We were then fortunate enough to visit the local pottery co-operative where we met the lady from our NEF meeting and were given a tour.

 

Time for a very quick look at the Safi - it is a very attractive town – on the coast and with an old walled town. Then a convivial lunch with our local hosts.

 Then began the long trip back to Casa – about 4.5 hours.

Micro-franchising workshop

•Young people in Morocco represent 44% of working-age population, and 51% of these are unemployed

• Near East Foundation (NEF) is a not-for-profit organisation who have established the “Empowering Youth through Entrepreneurship in Morocco “(EYEM) Project  to support young people in establishing their own employment throgugh entrepreneurship.

• An objective of the EYEM project is to “Introduce one Microfranchise for Youth Entrepreneurs”

Our CSC team is assisting NEF to meet this objective. We've been researching micro-franchising and also trying to understand the local conditions and the successful ventures so far,
We agreed with NEF that we would conduct a workshop in El Jadida with local staff and with local youth involved with the programs.

We arrived in El Jadida Wednesday mid-morning.
We started with a visit to the old town in El J and met a wonderful local association running lessons and sport for local school children and youth.

 We then had a fast lunch and rushed to set up the workshop.

… At 2pm there were only 4 guests outside the core team, our client recommended to start at 2.30pm as that was the time most people would arrive; and sure enough at 2.25pm there was an influx of people, the room filled up and in the end we had about 20 participants. Many of these had started their own businesses with the assistance of the EYEM project. And some represented local associations and Youth Council.

After a Welcome from our Client Host and introductions, we explained the purpose of the meeting – to select a micro-franchise or “business in a box” to pilot in the local Doakkala Abda region.

It is the 1^st workshop I’ve done which was in 3 languages – English, French and Arabic. We had a translator along and also Nisrine from DOT who is fluent in French and Arabic and our own Egyptian princess, Dina. Dina spoke in Arabic to present on what a m/f is and what the benefits are; then Krishnendu overviewed the International picture and the success factors which we’d drawn from this analysis. It became even more fun when we started the brainstorming – we’d decided to use the approach where each person is given some Post-it notes to write their ideas on. These were handed to one of our multi-lingual team who’d translate; we had runners taking translated Notes to the front, and sorters grouping the ideas into categories.

We then took a break – and I wish I’d taken my camera. The most beautiful array of pastries and sweet biscuits and a variety of drinks. I tried the local avocado milkshake which was delicious.

Everyone went back for more multi-lingual discussion and voting – at one point I looked around the room and there were about 4 animated discussions taking place, including our translator and DOT manager weighing the pros and cons of various ideas!! I took a moment to enjoy the level of engagement and animation and then we pulled it back together. A lot of terrific ideas – all of which we will document and have available for our Client. Four were selected to focus on and we then evaluated those against the key success criteria – providing social benefit, low cost, simple model, market capacity.

The workshop finished on time at 5.30pm and on a high note following the excellent discussions.  We thanked everyone, gave out some IBM souvenirs and I also gave out pens and key-chains from Australia which were very well-received. The obligatory group photos were then taken outside.

 

Marrakech II

Sunday - another excellent breakfast at our Riad - which i would definitely recommend.
Today was our day for Marrakech city exploration. 15 is a fairly unwieldy number, so I was an honorary Canadian and set off with Karen (from Ottawa) and Janelle (from Saskatoon) - first stop the Bahia palace. Lots of courtyards,and tiles, stained glass and art, lots of orange trees. A lovely place.

We then kept up the culture with a visit to the Saadian tombs...

And then some lunch and a wander around the souks.

Marrakech Part I

The CSC Morocco 8 team talk a break from work and traveled to Marrakech at the weekend. We stayed in a very nice Riad - Riad ben Said - conveniently located for Djemaa el-Fna.
We arrived at about 8pm and headed out to the square for some local ambience.

 And then a great breakfast at the Riad and enjoying the roof top views.

 We then headed out on a day trip to the Atlas mountains - very stunning scenery and an exciting walk up to the Ouriks Falls.

In the evening we went to a very glamorous restaurant, with local entertainment. I had an excellent Tagine with beef and figs, with a local red.

Working hard !!

Here are some photos from our first three days of project work.

The official kick-off was on Monday at the IBM Innovation Centre in Casablanca:

 And then we have started work with our client NGO in El Jadida which is about 110Km South of Casa,

Kick Off

Much excitement and perhaps some nerves for the CSC Morocco 8 team as we headed out on our bus trip to the IBM Casablanca office, for the official Kickoff of our CSC projects. Can you spot me? in my business suit :)

We had a very warm welcome from the IBM Morocco Country General Manager and Corporate Relations Manager. Then each client presented, and then the four IBM teams.
We were made to feel so welcome !

Below is a photo of the lovely Dina presenting for Subteam 4 "Sunshine team" on our project scope for Micro-franchising:

 In the afternoon, we had a very productive meeting with Near East Foundation and we are starting to understand more about the issues. We look forward to the exciting challenges ahead !