Our Project Presentation, El Jadida 31st March 2016

Our project work in El Jadida culminated in our final presentation to Near East Foundation and their strategic partners, in El Jadida on 31st March. Also present were the  Corprate Service manager for IBM Morocco and our DOT manager.

We got there early of course... and this picture was taken once we were set up and were waiting for the room to fill up...

Our presentation ran through the background, our project approach, benhcmarking analysis and the short and long term strategies for micro-franchising for Near East Foundation.

Rabat - an easter without chcolate !!

We spent Easter Sunday in Rabat, which is the capital city of Morocco.

Most people have heard of Casablanca, Fez, Marrakesh, but perhaps not Rabat? So in my mind i put it into the category of boring, "created" capital cities. This proved to be wrong. We had a wonderful day in Rabat - from Roman ruins to twisting medina to stunning ocean views from tiny blue lanes in the old port.

Our first stop was the ancient roman city of Chellah. There wer quite extensive remains - though not the well-preserved mosaics of St Albans.

After this we visited the mausoleum of King Mohamed V which was very grand, and had our first glimpses of the seascape and harbour. The palace guards were very impressive in their uniforms and very friendly about having photos.

Around 5pm we nearly headed back to the station, but fortunately we decided to stay a bit longer and go back to the harbour. We'd saved the best for last and i really loved the tiny blue and white lanes of the old port area

We caught the train bakc - very comfortable and back to the hotel around 8.30pm.

I had a nice glass of wine... and hey, although I had some mini eggs in the fridge, i didn't feel like chocolate. So my first zero-chocolate Easter in who knows how many years !!

Casablanca

As the date to complete our project drew closer, and completion of all our deliverables, a few of us stayed local for the final weekend.

I was quite pleased to as I didn't feel that I'd seen a lot of  Casa, because during the week we've been working and then the last 2 weekends away in Marrakech and Fez.

We started the day with a traditional Moroccan breakfast at the gorgeous Sqala restaurant.  Four types of bread/pancake; all cooked in the ovens there; labne, olives, dips, plus honey and jam; and omelette. I hope the pictures do it justice.

Casa has a very modern tram line which we caught out to the Corniche for a bracing walk along the beach. really enjoyed getting away from the traffic and pollution, even though the beach was less than pristine.

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.