You Can Dream. Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do.

A fellow RPCV produced an amazing video of six remarkable Moroccan women who have overcome all sorts of odds to succeed and to share their knowledge with other women. One of the women profiled is my counterpart, Amina Yabis, President of the the Cherry Buttons Cooperative. Her story and that of all the other women are truly inspiring. They exemplify grassroots development at its very core. Please share with friends and family and spread the word that women's empowerment, as Amartya Sen would likely say, is one of the many if not the most effective tool for alleviating poverty for women and their children, reducing infant mortality, reducing the number of births, improving the health of women and their children, and creating more accountable and representative governments around the world.


You Can Dream. Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do from cortney healy on Vimeo.

For more stories on Women in the Muslim World, please visit: http://womensvoicesnow.org/

Camp GLOW Morocco 2010 Update

Camp GLOW is ON in full force once again for the 4th time since its inception in 2006 adding as we say in Spanish "leña al fuego", wood to the fire, and that fire is the motivation and desire that many young women across Morocco have to gain some economic independence and have more control over their future.

I don't think I mentioned in my previous entries about Camp GLOW about my personal motivation to see the camp succeed.  Part of my impetus comes from personal experience growing up among some very strong and powerful women who happen to be in my immediate family and happened to be living in the developing world.  Shortly after I was born, my father at the young age of 23 with a recently acquired university degree in electrical engineering passed away unexpectedly leaving my mother with me and my three-year-old sister in a foreign country with a foreign language and culture.  My mother suddenly had to provide somehow.  The situation thrusted her out into what was uncharted territory for her.  With the help of church friends, she went on to get her GED and to get a vocational certification in secretarial administration.  With my mother's visa about to expire, we had no choice but to move back to Venezuela where the going got even tougher, but thankfully family was there to offer support. In the machismo-permeated work environment characteristic of many Latin American countries, my mother had to fight even more for work and for the respect of her male bosses.  Another powerful woman was my Aunt Sara who worked extremely hard to get her degree in elementary education, to secure a public school position, and to save money to purchase a home that we all shared.  Both my aunt and my mother owe their strength to my grandmother who taught herself how to read and took on whatever menial job was available to put food on the table for her daughters and for extended family.

In order to get the family through the rough patches, these women had to be entrepreneurial, bold, audacious, resourceful, and innovative.  Being witness to how much these women were able to accomplish in a machismo environment in a developing country, I know that if women can just get the information, the knowledge, the skills, and the support from mentors, they can create the life they wish to live for themselves and for their families.  Also, given life's unpredictability, I believe this knowledge, skills, resourcefulness, and entrepreneurial attitude is not something that these women should gain and develop as a hobby but as a vocation.

Camp GLOW 2010 took over 40 young women from rural villages and small cities from the Middle Atlas Mountains and tried to instill the entrepreneurial spirit and to provide the know-how.  The camp took place from July 25-31 at Mohammedia.  I went to visit on the third day of the camp to chat with Mrs. Amina Yabis, my counterpart and principal organizer, take some shots, and to check-in with the PCVs.  PCV Marian and Rachel were present at the camp serving as camp counselors.  Marian wrote a number of summaries on our Facebook Cause that I'd like to share with you:

Camp GLOW Morocco-Days 1 and 2

After a two-day training of facilitators for Camp GLOW, 45 young women arrived in Sefrou yesterday morning. They piled in the bus rented for the camp and we pulled out of the parking lot. Amina, the lead facilitator popped a CD of Berber music and the fun began. The girls sang along, clapped and soon were in the aisles belly-dancing and shaking it without reservations. Wow, what a great start, no need for an icebreaker! The exuberant singing and dancing held out the entire five-hours to Mohammedia. After arriving at our campsite, everyone had a good night sleep.

This morning began with group exercise on the beach, and after breakfast we began our first session. The campers were split up into four groups and assigned to a facilitator who lead a discussion on attitudes about personality, gender and cultural differences. When the time came for the young ladies to partake in the discussion, they seemed unrecognizable from the group on the bus the day before. It took awhile to get warmed up and encourage some of the more introverted females to participate in the activity. 

As the day went on, the campers began to acclimate to their new environment and roommates. Some of the young women from rural villages had spent their first night away from their family the night before and all were new to guided discussions in which they were invited to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions. After lunch everyone took advantage of the sunny weather and spent a few hours on the beach. The thrill of seeing the ocean (many for the first time ever!) and playing in the waves was a fantastic way to wear down the guardedness inhibiting some of the GLOW Campers; for the first time since the beginning of camp the separate villages began to intermingle. 

After an afternoon session, the evening willl be spent in the dining hall for a dance party that will hopefully rival yesterday's bus ride.

Camp GLOW: Day 3

Women's Empowerment: 5 Steps to Success

GLOW Camp Day 3 started off with a sleepy breakfast following a dancing soiree in the dining hall. The campers perked up when Amina, the lead facilitator lead an energetic discussion about her experience starting and building the Cherry Buttons Cooperative of Sefrou. Her success as an artisan entrepreneur has become known all over Morocco and her cooperative is very active in providing mentorship and training to young women from the region. Amina explained the process of developing an idea into a plan and the process of starting and completing a project, as well as some of the challenges and opportunities she encountered while developing the cooperative selling jellaba buttons.

As Amina concluded her talk, the next speaker arrived from Rabat. Ilham Zhiri, president of the Association of Entrepreneurship for Moroccan Women arrived and led a lively, informative and inspiring discussion. After describing her educational background, challenges and career path towards becoming the Association's president, she outlined the five components that she believed had been crucial components to her success. These steps to success Ilham described are:

1. Self-confidence

2. Self-reliance

3. Positive attitude

4. A solution-oriented mind

5. Self-improvement

As she identified each step she applied each of them to one of more of the challenges faced by women in Morocco. The young women identified some of their own personal challenges and were very curious about specific ways she was able to use these steps to persevere, little by little. Ilham also shared information about Association of Entrepreneurship for Moroccan Women's mentorship program for young women and shared the Association's local and regional contact information. 

One camper, Fatima lives in a very small Berber village called Immouzer Marmoucha with few, if any business opportunities for women. Like many rural women, she comes from a family of skilled weavers. Towards the conclusion of the presentation, Fatima slipped off to her room and returned with three beautifully hand-woven traditional Berber pillows. She presented them to Ilham and described her goal of selling them in the city nearest to her hometown. It was a truly inspirational moment for both the camp facilitators and the participants. 

The young women walked to lunch glowing with encouragement and inspiration. Three of the ladies from my own site asked me to help them with their projects once they had returned from camp- What a great day!!

For many of the camp participants, it was the first time they had met a highly successful Moroccan woman, and for others the first time they had been told that developing self-confidence is an important part of achieving one's goals. 

Girls Leading Our World! Thank you Ilham, Amina, the Association of Entrepreneurship for Moroccan Women and the Cherry Buttons Cooperative!

Camp GLOW: Day 4 

Well, here we are already halfway through Camp GLOW! What a wonderful three days it has been getting to know the forty-four young women who have been working hard this week. 

This morning Camp GLOW was all about business. As a follow-up to the session led by Amina yesterday about building and developing a business, the campers spent the morning brainstorming business ideas in small groups and writing a business plan. Towards the conclusion of the morning session, each group presented their business plan and answered questions from staff and participants about the specifics of their ideas. The presentations were quite impressive and thorough; even more impressive were the creative ideas of each group. The project ideas included: a milk cooperative, patisserie, beauty salon specializing in weddings, cultural guesthouse, and an olive cooperative. 

Following lunch and an hour of swimming, the participants re-grouped for a presentation by an advocate of the newly passed Mudawana or Family Law of Morocco. Passed in 2005 by King Mohammed VI, the law grants women more rights within marriage and takes steps towards abolishing the patriarchal family. Some of the important changes mandated by the law include:

- The legal obligation to obtain a divorce from a secular court (vs. a letter from a religious official) 

- The parent who keeps custody of the children also keeps the house. 

- The legal age of marriage is 18 instead of 15. 

- Sexual harassment is an offense punished by law. 

- Polygamy, while still allowed, became more difficult under the new Mudawana in 2003

The advocate fielded questions from the participants and provided information on the remaining challenges within Morocco's legal system that may inhibit the enforcement of the code. These challenges, she said, are especially present in rural regions. Despite Mudawana's limitations, the participants will be able to take their knowledge of the new Family Law back to their hometowns, perhaps further empowering the women with knowledge about their legal entitlements.

In all, the camp had five full days of activities.  A range of subjects were covered dealing with health and hygiene, women's rights, and environmental stewardship, but the main focus was on entrepreneurship.  With the help of the U.S. Embassy staff who provided the organizing NGO, the Golden Buttons Association, with a number of special speakers comprising of some remarkable women business owners and high-ranking public servants, the young girls heard personal accounts of the challenges those women overcame and their keys to success.  The brainstorming of business ideas was led by Mrs. Amina Yabis, my counterpart, who just three days prior to the camp beginning had arrived from the U.S. after attending for the second consecutive time the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.  Although I was not at the event to see her speak, I am sure she spoke frankly as I've seen her do in many instances about the need for women to seek more than what has been planned for them, to continue to learn, to get the recognition for their work, and to give back to those in need.

Camp GLOW is due to continue on through the fall and spring.  Because of a large grant the association received from the U.S. Embassy to cover the main summer camp, all the individual donations sent to the High Atlas Foundation totaling close to $1,200 will be used to hold 2-3 follow-up events in the Middle Atlas region.  We are hoping that we can leverage those funds with funding from municipalities, Peace Corps funding opportunities, or from other NGOs to be able to invite a large number of women.  A number of young ladies dropped out at the last second or were not allowed to leave their villages for whatever reason so we hope that with the excess funds, we will be able to take Camp GLOW to them.

I want to thank everyone who read my blog and donated to Camp GLOW.  I only posted a few of the pictures.  My counterpart and the PCVs took a whole lot more and will likely post them soon.  I will update the web album posted on the Cherry Buttons Coop site as soon as they are made available.  More information regarding the follow-up events will be forthcoming.  Congrats to all! Way to go GLOW!

Interior and Exterior Affairs: Comparing Glass Ceilings, USA and Morocco

During my senior year in college, I had to take a number of gender courses not by choice but because they were the only ones I could fit into my full-time work schedule while staying on track for graduation.  In one class I was one of three guys in a class of 30 and in another much bigger class I would estimate that we were a just a little over 10%.  It was a real drag to go to some of the classes because often the subject matter focused on how men continued to oppress women in every facet of society.  One class went segment by segment showing statistics on the disparity in education, income, occupations, media, and sports just to name a few.  It was tough to show up day in and day out to hear how we men conspire on a regular basis to keep women down.  I promised my female friends that I did not meet in dark, shady rooms to discuss strategies on how to ensure women could continue to earn 20-30% less than what a man makes.  The classes began to sound like a broken record.  Then, towards the end of gender course, there was an interesting development that made everything click for me.

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Back in 2003, Annika Sorenstan, the number one golfer on the LPGA tour, requested to play in a PGA tour event.  At first, I didn't think much of it.  I thought that it was a bold move to attempt to compete with the best male golfers.  I was surprised to read that some male golfers did not want Annika to participate.  I thought, "Why would they object, did they feel threatened, and what is it really that they're objecting to?"  Vijay Singh, the number two golfer in the PGA at the time, dropped out of the event and said she had "no business" playing with men and others said it was a publicity stunt.

Many female organizations supported Annika's move and began exposing a side of golf that I had not really been aware of.  Several organizations built campaigns pushing for changes to the many all-male membership policies of many golf country clubs.  The organizations claimed that the policies of these exclusive establishments were discriminatory. The campaigners pointed to the advertising that goes on during golf events to demonstrate how important it is to gain access to the country club.  The sponsors of the marquee events are usually some of the biggest and most prestigious corporations in the world: Rolex, Accenture, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE, Audi, Polo, and upscale spirits companies round the list.  To the women organizations, the country club is a place where the CEOs of some of these sponsors gather to iron out a merger, secure venture capital investments, or decide to launch their IPO while playing out a round of 18 holes.  Women CEOs or women who want to climb the corporate ladder, unable to join the boys, miss out on the wheeling and dealing that may take place.

I slowly began to understand why my gender class professors kept repeating the same tune. It was not to bash men, but to expose how the oppression is systematic.  It was to show how both men and women sometimes discriminate or perpetuate oppression upon one another sometimes deliberately and sometimes without even thinking.  We all do a number of things as second nature for a number of reasons: sometimes because mom said so, tradition, culture, or perhaps religion.  Before Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, or Ghandi, the thought that certain rights or privileges belonged only to a select few was widely accepted and adhered to by a vast majority in both the oppressors and oppressed camp.  Both camps content with the status quo or scared of change would have probably justified their stance by saying that things are simply the way they are and that things would likely remain the same so why fight it?  Why not just adapt to it?  These revolutionaries did not believe that premise and boldly began to expose the injustice and to preach the gospel of self-determination, and over time a number of people began to see their point of view and joined their cause.  It took guts to stand out there despite what seemed like an insurmountable resistance, but their audacity brought about change and a new way of thinking about what's right and wrong.

So when Annika made the choice to give the PGA a shot, some people were, not surprisingly, upset with her decision because she was confronting a norm that a number of folks in the golf community had grown accustomed to and just felt her appearance ran contrary to the way things were.  She did not get political on her decision.  The women organizations did.  The story of the the all-male country club as a discriminatory franchise got more attention in the media.  Some of the women organizations reiterated that the all-male country club did indeed reinforce the glass ceiling.  The golfers that stated that her move was a publicity stunt perhaps did not want their environment exposed and did not want it described like the women organizations were describing it.  They probably did not feel the same way that the women organizations did and maybe thought having grown up under the all-male franchise that their tradition was reverent.  Annika's move was not revolutionary, but it was noteworthy for how it made some folks in the golf community a little uncomfortable.

The all-male country club and restaurants still exist today in the good ol' US of A.  Women organizations are challenging some of them in court (You can catch up on some of the recent developments at the Discrimination and Country Clubs blog).  With more pressure, they may become a fixture of the past, but for now they will continue to welcome some very wealthy and well connected male patrons who simply feel more comfortable in a room full of dudes because it's what they know and how they've grown up and who may be oblivious to how their actions affect others or there may be others who could be conspiring in the darkest and shadiest of rooms on ways to further the oppression.

Anytime I wish to speak about an aspect of a society different than my own, I first take a look at how my society is doing with regards to that particular aspect.  For example, in my last blog, I wrote about the segregation of the sexes when it comes to the outdoor cafe in Morocco.  It would be easy to point fingers at Morocco's almost exclusive male establishments and regard them as discriminatory and perhaps oppressive, but the U.S., despite its many advances in bringing parity between genders, it still has places like the all-male country clubs and upscale restaurants much like Morocco that are exclusively male.  Morocco has no law preventing women from going to cafes, but it has social norms that are widely accepted especially in more rural areas where men are generally expected to interact with other men outside while women have their home as their conference space.  I wrote that my host mother and sisters were not disheartened by not being able to visit the cafe because they were not drawn to the large screen televisions showing football games, did not like the cloud of cigarette smoke that hovers idly in some cafes, and did not go because their friends were not going there.  Their responses made sense, but then I thought about what the women organizations had said about how the country club is the de facto board room for many CEO's.

Much like the all-male country club, work and politics is often a topic of conversation at the cafe.  Personally in many occasions, I've expressed a difficulty in finding an association or an individual that could help me with a specific task or project, and in some instances my cafe friends have been able to point me to people they know that could help.  I am pretty confident that in many cases this networking goes on at the cafe among government officials and business owners—a dear friend of mine once said that because the marquee cafes are better lit, have heating and AC, and have more comfortable chairs than the municipal offices, the cafe becomes the default city hall.  Also, because at times men travel distances to find employment, knowledge of the country and the economic environment of other areas is exchanged.  Thus, because women are absent, this wealth of information and any negotiations rest with the male cafe goers.  In this regard, the country club and the Moroccan cafe seem to be on par. 

So how do you remedy the situation?  How can Moroccan women entrepreneurs succeed without this wealth of information or exchange?  Back in November of last year, a Seattle-based NGO called The Center for Women and Democracy brought a delegation of women CEOs, lawyers, community leaders, and students to hold a forum to identify some of the obstacles facing Moroccan female leaders and to provide a place where ideas could be exchanged.  At the event I met a number of remarkable women who were trying to fill the information exchange void that exists among Moroccan women.  One association was led by Ilham Zhiri, Vice-President of AFEM, Association des Femmes Chefs d’Entreprise du Maroc.  Some of objectives of Ms. Zhiri's organization are to orient, inform, and assist women entrepreneurs in their search for a competitive advantage for their businesses, create a network of women business owners, encourage entrepreneurship among women, promote the image of women business owners, and organize forums and seminars for women to learn and to network with one another.   Another was a consortium of women who had pooled funds to invest in women-owned enterprises.  And in the political front, a few women who were part of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs were providing campaign training for women interested in running for elected office.  These are just a few examples of many exemplary women leaders I met who I believe will change the business, political, and perhaps the social environment of Morocco.

But will all Moroccan women benefit from their efforts?  After the event, I spoke to my counterpart, Amina Yabis, who I accompanied to the event and asked her what she thought about the different women she networked with.  She was skeptical that many of the initiatives by these dynamic organizations would ever reach the rural parts of Morocco.  She explained that some of the city women would never inconvenience themselves by going out to a remote part of the country where amenities are sometimes non-existent to hold their seminars.  Rural women, on the other hand, generally do not have funds to travel to the capital or another major city or they may be discouraged from traveling by their family or community especially if they are to travel on their own for safety reasons as most travelers are men and verbal and sometimes physical harassment is common.

My counterpart also noted that many city women cannot relate to the lives of rural women.  Some of the city women having traveled or studied abroad may act a little more pompous than usual and that attitude is sometimes reflected in their language when they make fun of the tough living conditions some of the women face on a daily basis.  Given this huge divide in lifestyles, it seems that the efforts of the Moroccan women in the urban hubs may take a while to reach a large swath of women who could seriously use the help.

My counterpart's remedy has been her association's community outreach work.  Through the Golden Buttons Association she organized a number of women to demand literacy courses from the Ministry of Education for adult women.  With the help of Office of Development and Cooperation (ODCO) and Sefrou Delegation of Artisana, she was also able to get training on how to establish a cooperative and to get weaving training for herself and a few other ladies.  This collective action was later converted to a cooperative named the Cherry Buttons Cooperative that now represents 40 women in the almost exclusively women-produced djellaba button handicraft.  Peace Corps helped her in the development from an association to a cooperative and they continue to collaborate with her on the formation of empowerment camps for young girls.  I will expand a bit more on the philosophy of the camp in a later blog, but basically the camp's target group is rural young women who for some reason or another dropped out of school, may be illiterate, and may not have access to resources or other women to connect to that could lend support to their micro-enterprise idea.

Last summer a university student that came to Morocco to study Arabic came to my hometown to find out about some of the work that I had been doing.  I explained that I was helping a women's coop that wishes to become a major vendor of the djellaba button handicraft, a craft that is almost entirely produced by women but sold by men.  I was so entranced by my zeal to help these women gain parity that I failed to recognize the societal implications of my activities.  She asked, "By helping these women over the men bazzarist, aren't you going to be putting some men out of work?"  That very well could be and by putting some of these middlemen out of work, I may be messing with the established Moroccan fabric making it difficult for the men to bring home the Halal bacon and adding more to the homemaker than she can handle.

When I feel I may be messing with the fabric of Moroccan society, I am encouraged, however, by a book I read and also blogged about titled Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen.  In this book, the author states and I'm paraphrasing to the max here that an increase in women's literacy has the effect of reducing infant mortality, reducing the number of births because women who continue going to school put off marriage and child rearing for a later age, changes the dynamics of the home as women who earn an income feel more empowered by their economic independence, and creates a more representative democracy as more women run for political office or participate in the process.  In a country where women's illiteracy stands at over 50% nationwide and even higher in rural areas, I feel it is absolutely necessary to try to work with women.

One time I saw my host father get chewed out by my host mother for bringing something for dinner (don’t know exactly what because my Arabic was still pretty rough at the time) that did not please her.  I was surprised by the outbreak, but rather happy to see that she didn’t hold back.  My host father was speechless.  Noticing that I had witnessed the entire ordeal, he turned to me and said in Spanish, “Yo soy el Ministro del Exterior y ella la Ministra del Interior”(I am the Minister of Exterior and she is the Minister of Interior).  That statement I think is very true of the understanding that each sex has of its role in some parts of Morocco today.  He doesn't infringe on her territory and she on his.  When either does, then naturally a scolding is due.

Morocco has made great strides over the last ten years to change the perception of the gender roles that my host dad has grown up under and probably wholeheartedly upholds.  The advent of the Moudawana, Morocco's new Family Code, gave women more rights in the case of divorce, custody of children, and inheritance issues.  In addition, the Kingdom put in a place a quota reserving 12% of all municipality seats for women.  These two measures are a step forward towards opening a path to women.  These early pioneers who have filled these inaugural posts will hopefully pass on their knowledge and experience to younger women and hence recreate their own support network thereby supplanting the need to join the boys at the cafe.  While I think it is necessary for women to gather to create a collective front, I do hope that at some point in time there will be a fusion of the interior and exterior ministries like there has been in the states.

The U.S. still has a ways to go in terms of bridging the gap between the sexes, but with more women attaining higher levels of education, joining the workforce or managing their own enterprise, and running for political office, the line between what is solely male and female has become blurry.  I am not advocating for a U.S. style work and household environment.  There are a lot of things about the U.S. lifestyle that I find dysfunctional.  I am only suggesting that there may be women who may not wish to fill a certain gender role and may wish to fulfill the dream of becoming the next industry leader and could probably be a better minister of exterior than her husband and that aspiration should be supported.

The country club is a great example that shows that many U.S. Americans are still working out territorial issues between the sexes.  Discrimination still persists.  Oppression is still in place and we sometimes do it without even thinking.  I'm not sure if Moroccan colleges and universities include gender courses in their curriculum.  These courses are helpful because at some point a Moroccan Annika may presents herself and with the help of women organizations a student may then finally see how a seemingly harmless and culturally accepted all-male environment that only a few seem to question could also be a place that is reinforcing the glass-ceiling in Moroccan society.