Morocco tour sees youthful enthusiasm, hope

MEDA supporters from Texas to Ontario recently witnessed Morocco’s past, present and future as part of a tour organized with TourMagination. On the 12-day tour, they met some of the 9,000 youth who are cultivating hope for their own future through MEDA Youth Invest’s 100 Hours to Success training project.
100 Hours provides basic life skills plus an understanding of finance and business – how to start and run a business, budgeting, marketing and access to financial services to encourage savings and the wise use of credit.
In a country with a population of 34 million and a median age of only 25, 60% of the country’s unemployed are young people. YouthInvest is helping to address this huge social problem.
The group had the opportunity to see how 100 Hours really can change a life – meeting young people in business – all with youthful enthusiasm fuelled by a new self-confidence and new skills learned in the program.
“The hope came through loud and clear,” note Agnes and Frank DeFehr of Winnipeg, MB.
“What we saw was powerful,” said Yvonne Miller of Chicago, IL. “My favourite part of the trip was getting outside the city to see what real life is like and how real people are benefiting from the project. I am very grateful for the opportunity to see this work.”
Bev and Jane DeKay of London, ON, met “one young woman who had set up a real estate office – created herself a job – and had several family members involved – so the project is not just helping her, but her whole family.”
Visiting a training session in a small town east of the Atlas Mountains, Agnes and Frank said, “The students were very excited about what they were learning – money management and access to loans.” Bev and Jane were impressed by the instructor and the youth. “We couldn’t understand the language, but we thoroughly enjoyed the class.”
Agnes and Frank liked “the combination of seeing the MEDA project and sightseeing, too, to get the history, culture and how people actually live.”
An estimated 50,000 youth will build economic prosperity through the five-year project, which is funded by The MasterCard Foundation and MEDA supporters. “You see lots of young people everywhere,” says MEDA’s Bob Kroeker, who co-led the tour with Audrey Voth Petkau of TourMagination. “It really underscores the need for our work there.”
Join an upcoming tour!

Agnes and Frank DeFehr, Winnipeg, MB: "YouthInvest inspires hope for youth"
Agnes and Frank DeFehr of Winnipeg, MB, were part of a joint MEDA/TourMagination tour to visit Morocco Mar 25-Apr 5, 2011. The group saw how MEDA’s YouthInvest program is helping thousands of youth find new hope and peace. Here are their impressions of the tour:
“We started the tour at the MEDA office, meeting project staff, including field director Adil Sadoq, who gave us a passionate introduction to the program and staff.
“We visited a classroom in a small town east of the Atlas Mountains being held in a community centre. There were about 25 students, and they were very excited about what they were learning about money management and getting access to loans.
“We especially enjoyed going into villages, where we met a young shop keeper who is doing quite well selling small appliances, and we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of goods he had in stock. We also visited young women making carpets and sewing beautiful garments for weddings and other occasions, as well as every-day clothing. They were very proud of what they were doing, and the seamstress was especially proud of the sewing machine she had bought with her earnings.
“Morocco has some spectacular scenery – the mountains, the sea coast – it was beautiful: the greenery, red soil and the architecture of the mosques and other buildings – all crafted out of wood, plaster and tiles. At a casbah (citadel or fortress) high up on a hill, we stopped to enjoy tea while overlooking the valley. We liked the combination of seeing the MEDA project and sightseeing, too – you get glimpses of the country’s history and culture, yet also see the grassroots and how people actually live.
“YouthInvest inspires hope for youth – the hope came through loud and clear.”

Bev and Jane DeKay of London, ON, pictured here with Yvonne Miller of Chicago, IL, also were on the Morocco tour:










“This was our first time in Morocco and TourMagination did a good job of showing us the sights and sounds of Morocco, with a good cross section of the country. The traffic in the cities is something else: The roads are crowded with push carts, carts being pulled by donkeys, bikes, cars, taxis, buses and people – it’s something to see. You have to be careful when walking.
“Field director Adil Sadoq was very enthusiastic in explaining how the project worked. We visited a classroom with young people eager to learn how to present themselves to help get started in work. Their teacher was doing an excellent job of encouraging class participation. We couldn’t understand the language, but we thoroughly enjoyed the class.
“At most Moroccan banks you need $100 to open an account, but through project partners, YouthInvest participants can now open an account with just $10. This is important to encourage savings and help young people to be able to provide for themselves.
“Youth in the project are very optimistic and happy with how things are going. One young woman had set up a real estate office, creating herself a job. She had several family members involved – so the project is not just helping her, but her whole family. Another student’s father was helping her set up a bed and breakfast business.
“We were excited to get right into local homes, and found the people are quite friendly and immediately want to serve tea to their guests. The hospitality was first rate!”

Yvonne Miller of Chicago, IL:
“This was my first time to Morocco or on MEDA tour, although I have been to Egypt. I loved visiting the MEDA staff and clients and seeing how microloans work.
“We met a store owner who took the 100 Hours to Success training. He felt it had helped him set up a successful kitchen wares store – he learned how to run a business and how to relate to customers.
“In one village we saw students in a YouthInvest classroom full of enthusiasm and interest. It was inspiring to see how they want to learn, to make a difference in their communities; it was a very powerful experience.
“My favourite part of trip was seeing real people benefit. We had a nice balance of seeing Morocco’s urban and rural areas and saw what real life is like. I came home thinking a lot about the young women we met and wondering how they will apply what they have learned.
“We went into the homes of young women who have obtained loans through the project. One was knotting carpets; another was sewing with a knitting machine and a sewing machine. She was making traditional garments and fine wedding garments. It was a family enterprise – dad takes her wares to the souk (market) to sell and her mother contributes by making wool throws and carpets.
“What we saw was powerful. MEDA’s field director, Adil Sadoq, did a good job of explaining the program and how it works. We clearly saw the impact and enthusiasm for what was being offered. I am very grateful for opportunity to have seen this work.”

Support MEDA's YouthInvest program and see how 100 Hours can change a life!

Moroccan youth learn, earn through YouthInvest training

Young people in Morocco are starting to realize their hopes and dreams through MEDA’s YouthInvest program. In one year, 1,480 youth have completed the program’s 100 Hours to Success, which provides training in life skills, financial skills and entrepreneurship. Another 700 are now enrolled in the program.

A recent survey of participants shows youth are beginning to understand the importance of savings. Half plan to use their savings to start or grow a business, buy equipment or further their education. More are now working, income levels have started to increase, and they’re better prepared to enter the workforce. They’ve become more employable, and more conscientious.

Survey highlights:

• 96% now have a savings account, vs. 19% before entering the program
• 75% would not have opened an account were it not for the program
• 25% of program youth are now involved in apprenticeships
• 170 youth have accessed loans, with an average loan of $1,300
• Family, friends, teachers and employers have noticed positive changes in attitudes and behaviors
• 90% report the program has helped them move toward reaching their goals
• 100% would recommend the program to a friend
• 25% are now working, vs. 13% before entering the program
• 15% increase in incomes since entering program

Want to witness MEDA’s impact for yourself? Join Bob Kroeker of MEDA and Audrey Voth Petkau of TourMagination for a MEDA in Morocco tour Mar 25 to Apr 5, 2011! Visit http://www.tourmagination.com/ for details or call 1-800-565-0451.

For more stories from MEDA’s YouthInvest project, go to http://www.100hours.meda.org/

Surveys will show client impact

Leah Katerberg of MEDA was recently in Morocco for the annual survey of YouthInvest clients and partners.

The survey will help us measure the impact of our work with youth through the program. We'll share highlights of our findings at a later date.

"This picture," reports Leah, "is of the Kasbah Taourirt in Ouarzazate, constructed in the 19th century. Kasbahs were originally built as fortified towns and now represent the 'old' part of many modern Moroccan cities."

The Taourirt Kasbah was owned by the el Glaoui clan, which controlled a major caravan route to West Africa. The kasbah, located at a strategic junction of the caravan routes, was highly important during the 1930s, when the el Glaoui powers were at their peak. The palace has close to 300 rooms and more than 20 riads, or gardens.

You don't need to be rich to save

Leah Katerberg, this week's guest blogger, shares some experiences of a YouthInvest training session from her recent trip to Morocco.

I’m in Morocco to conduct our annual survey, but we’ve adjourned for the day and I’ve decided to sit in on a training session for 100 Hours to Success. The youth are just beginning the module on saving. Let me show you what they’re learning:

The trainer starts by guiding them in a discussion on the general goals of saving. All contributions are posted on the wall, and together the youth categorize them into three broad uses for savings:
1. Events (eg. wedding)
2. Unknown future expenses (eg. appliance repair)
3. Business opportunity (income generation)

The youth are now formed into groups of about five, each representing a family, and are provided relevant information on the family’s assets, expenses, income, and also a set of challenges to solve.

For example, the family’s father may have been diagnosed with a hearing problem, so the family must save for the purchase of a hearing aid; the oldest daughter is graduating from high school next year and would like to pursue college-level education; the mother owns a sewing business and has had to turn down certain types of work because of the limitations of her machine.

Together, each ‘family’ decides how much they can save per month based on their current situation. The youth understand this often requires sacrifice in expenditures, however some groups’ creativity went beyond fewer visits to the internet café: “We will sell one of our cows, we can negotiate lower rent with our landlord, we will start a small garden plot and sell vegetables to our neighbors.” Continuing the example above, let’s say our group determines it will be able to save 300 dirhams per month (about $35).

Next, each group completes a savings plan template to enable them to reach their goals. Our group’s looks something like this:








At 300 dirhams per month, the hearing aid can be purchased in less than half a year. Then, the family can start saving for the first year of college for the oldest daughter, which will take about eight months. Once those two goals have been achieved, saving can begin for the sewing machine. Likely, the additional income generated by the new machine will help the family save for subsequent years of college.

As each group confidently shares its plan the twofold message becomes clear: Saving is powerful, and you don’t need to be rich to save.

Change among youth motivates Mustapha to do more

This week's guest blogger, project manager Jennifer Denomy, reports from Morocco where she continues to introduce us to some of MEDA Morocco's staff members.

After YouthInvest started field activities last year, local project manager Mustapha Ouchrahou had many questions: How would the partners work? How would they deliver the training? What would the impact be and how would youth react?

The first training sessions happened with secondary school students in Boudnib, a small town near Errachidia in the south east of Morocco. "I met with some of the youth and heard their stories," says Mustapha.

"They said that the training had given them an entirely new attitude, new skills and a greater sense of self-confidence. There was a real change in their way of thinking. They discussed calmly how things were going at school and how they had begun to negotiate their needs with the administration.

"I could really see that there was a difference. It was very touching. Now we are so motivated to do more because of the change we see.”

Meet the YouthInvest staff! Here's Fatima Zohra …

This week's guest blogger, project manager Jennifer Denomy, reports from Morocco where she will be introducing us to some of the MEDA Morocco staff members over the coming weeks.

Being part of an inspiring program such as YouthInvest is bringing proud moments for project staff.

YouthInvest finance manager Fatima Zohra Boukhnifi felt one of those bursts of pride in April, when a group of youth “graduates” of the 100 Hour to Success program were interviewed by reporters and the project was featured on a national Moroccan news program.

"When I saw the interview on television, I felt so proud and told everyone I knew that I work on this project. I feel very connected to the work and to the beneficiaries."

Fatima Zohra also finds it rewarding to be part of the interaction between MEDA Maroc and MEDA headquarters in Waterloo, Canada. When there are accounting difficulties, she reaches out to HQ staff and feels she is not working alone. “We are supported and it’s very motivating,” she says.

MEDA’s deadlines are tighter than those in other places she has worked, and with HQ support, she is learning to prepare financial statements and reports more quickly.

Although everyone in the MEDA Maroc office works on different tasks and in different areas, decisions are made together. Everyone contributes and this makes the team very strong.

Fatima Zohra is now taking her first YouthInvest field visit and we look forward to hearing about her trip as she sees first hand what youth are learning in our project.

YouthInvest by the numbers

MEDA's YouthInvest project is making great progress in reaching out to unemployed youth in Morocco, reports project manager Jennifer Denomy, who is currently on a two-week field visit to Morocco.

For instance, youth are being encouraged to begin saving for their future. To date, 587 youth savings accounts have been opened with MEDA's partner financial institutions.

And MEDA is reaching out to many more youth with its 100 Hours to Success training program as it continues to scale up. Currently, 1,309 youth are enrolled in training and 554 have completed courses.

Partner financial institutions are piloting youth loan projects. Interested clients participate in eight hours of training, then apply for a loan to start or build a small business for themselves. The average loan size is 8,000 Moroccan Dirhams, or about $900.

MEDA is getting the word out about YouthInvest through awareness-raising sessions in high schools, youth centers and community centers to attract young people to the training.

A current priority is to expand YouthInvest to Egypt, and MEDA is finalizing partnership agreements with local banking institutions and NGOs. Recent research, including focus groups with youth, parents and community leaders and partners, will ensure that the program is tailored to the particular needs of the Egyptian community.

Watch this space for reports from the field!

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."

Meet Merye

Merye, 24 and married, has a small trading company for cosmetics and clothing imports that she is looking to expand. She would like to improve her business acumen and learn how to access financing to grow her small enterprise.

"YouthInvest will help support us and our families by giving us business knowledge," she says. "We will learn how to do market studies, how to choose a store location and how to assess whether our business idea will be successful or not.

"I could not afford to go to a formal school, and there is little opportunity for me to learn this in other ways, so this will be very valuable, for me and my family."

Through YouthInvest, MEDA hopes to reach out to 50,000 youth in Morocco and Egypt, where unemployment among the young is a major social problem. This project is bringing new hope to young people, who can now see a better future for themselves and their families.

To learn more about MEDA's work in Morocco and Egypt through YouthInvest, watch a short MEDA Moment video.

Welcome!

You’ve come to our new blog for YouthInvest – MEDA’s program to help jobless youth in Morocco and Egypt create sustainable livelihoods.

I hope you’ll visit us regularly here. We’ll post new entries each week, and you’ll meet the dedicated people involved in YouthInvest. Our field project manager, Adil Sadoq, will share regular updates from Morocco. You’ll hear from staff members in Morocco, Egypt, and here in North America. And we hope to encourage a few of the youth who are enrolled in 100 Hours to Success to introduce themselves and tell you about their plans for starting small businesses.

I think you’ll be inspired by what everyone has to say. The level of commitment by youth, MEDA partners and MEDA staff is remarkable. Last August, when I traveled to Morocco, I visited a microfinance institution that is partnering with us to develop youth-friendly products. I saw loan officers going out on foot, in incredible heat, to visit clients. They were working without the sophisticated financial tools – the laptops, the spreadsheets and so on – that you and I take for granted. That’s what people are doing on the ground to make YouthInvest happen.

Visit often to find out more.

Allan Sauder