Partner power

This week's guest blogger is Wally Kroeker, MEDA's director of publications and editor of The Marketplace magazine.

Why is MEDA so intent on working with local partners?

Because it makes a lot of practical and economic sense, says Adil Sadoq, field project manager of YouthInvest, which teaches financial literacy and life skills to young people in Morocco and Egypt. The heart of it is a customized curriculum called 100 Hours to Success, sort of MEDA’s version of Business 101.

Adil is a great believer in the synergy of partnerships. Rather than re-invent the wheel, he likes to collaborate with existing agencies that already have a proven track record of working with youth and can take MEDA’s unique training and run with it. “Working with local partners is so much more efficient because it is a long and arduous process for a new organization to get the necessary registrations to operate,” he says.

One of those partners is AMOS, a Moroccan microfinance pioneer, which has 26 loan officers and 6,000 micro-credit clients. AMOS has plenty of experience offering the kind of loans needed by small businesspeople everywhere, but it wasn’t equipped to offer the specialized training that these clients will need to grow their businesses. Teaming up with MEDA was a clear win-win.

On our visit, we were fortunate to be shown around by Halima Meskine, pictured, a dynamic young woman who is a loan officer with AMOS. She introduced us to a variety of clients, including a carpet weaver, a woman who raises goats, and a young woman who trains hairdressers. Each of these clients was ambitious and hard-working, but needed the extra nudge of YouthInvest training.

Another partner is the Near East Foundation, whose regional school trains 500-600 young people in skills that range from electrical and sewing to computers and physiotherapy. This school was looking forward to the “value added” that young people need to augment their career tracks.

These were just two of many organizations that are using YouthInvest training. It didn’t take a mathematical wizard to see how working with well-grounded partners with thousands of their own established contacts can exponentially magnify MEDA’s impact among Morocco’s productive citizens of tomorrow.

Making dreams a reality

Young Moroccans have dreams, but often they have no idea how to reach them. During a recent focus group, MEDA Morocco country manager Adil Sadoq spoke to youths about their dreams for the future.

One teaches sewing; her dream is to open a tailoring shop. Another has dreams of owning a beauty shop. Two young men aged about 17 or18 had vocational training in plumbing and electricity.

One wanted to find a mentor to gain skills and confidence to get a job, while the other wanted to start his own plumbing business. They are looking for training in how to go about doing so.

Fatima, 20, lives with her family. She is a seamstress, with dreams of purchasing a better sewing machine. "The banks will not give people as young as me loans, so I have no way to purchase any sewing equipment. Through YouthInvest, now I can get a loan to get a new machine – and I can also get training in how to run and expand my business to be successful."