HOW IT WORKS...sort of. I've had some inquiries about my work, and related entities, so here's a bit more info about that. The King has a Foundation (well, I imagine he has many) that provided the building the women's association (aka neddy) where my workplace is. The primary purpose of the neddy to teach the rural women various skills including: embroidery (both hand and machine), knitting (both hand and machine), crochet, ceramics, etc. The girls pay a small one-time membership fee and that includes all the training, for which they will get a diploma if they complete everything over a two-year period. Most of the girls come either in the morning or afternoon. Some walk 45 minutes over rocky paths to get here. The association gets annual funding to pay for trainers and transportation costs for the board members to attend meetings and workshops.

The King and the Moroccan government, in their development efforts, also support numerous other types of associations,, such as environment and sports. Sports being primarily soccer, I think. There are about 25 such associations in my little village. Don't ask me why...

It was interesting to note that I meeting I recently attended in the provincial (regional) capitol with my counterpart was conducted by two independent consultants hired by the Moroccan government on a fact-finding tour, as apparently the entire association arena is generally not functionally very well and results are not what was anticipated.

Back to the neddy. We (Small Business Development volunteers) see the same type of work all over the country like is being done at my neddy. The girls are learning these skills, but we're not sure for what purpose. So my project will hopefully put some of those acquired skills to use by making the types of products that will appeal to tourists. By use of partitions, we will make a little space in the corner that will be a small store from which they can sell their things. This whole concept/vision is very foreign to the girls from the outer villages. A few understand and I think have an inkling of the potential, but not really. Women here do not generally know anything about money, budgets, buying, selling. When I ask how much the materials cost for a certain item, they usually don't know. There is a huge learning curve on product development, pricing, record keeping, marketing...the whole small business thing. In one of my former lives I was the executive director of a chamber of commerce, and one of the first things I learned was that 50% of small business start-ups fail, primarily due to lack of a good business plan. I'm hoping that my experience and knowledge will put this effort on the success side of a start-up.

I will be receiving the check for the project next week, which will then entail me going with my counterpart to the nearby town that has a bank to try to open a temporary account which has little/no charges. Then we need to go to Marrakech and continue discussion with the welder who will be making the partitions. Then to a store to find fabric with which to cover the partitions. Then to a sign maker, someplace to make road signs. An on and on. But finally there is action! I will likely recommend another volunteer replace me next December as it will take some time to get them independently running the business.

A young woman has been selected to manage the store, and I am working with her on computer skills, of which she knows little. Her interest really is the store and handling product but she sees the need for record keeping etc. I am encouraging her to go to the cyber town and go through Microsoft online tutorials on Word and Excel in French, which can really teach her better than I. Now that she's coming to the neddy a lot for computer lessons, lots of girls now want to learn. I sat there most of the winter with no interest and of course now when I'm getting busy, everyone wants part of the action!