The Anou

To see more pics follow the link in this blog post...

A few weeks back, Dan Driscoll founder of The Anou came to visit the ladies of Cooperative Chorouk. While the site isn't open just yet, I invite you to watch the short intro video which is on the above link. This will give you an idea of exactly what the site is, but in short, it's a 'fair-trade' site for artisans to post and sell their products on. It is designed for those with no computer skills and who are illiterate. It's pretty awesome.

Dan stayed here in ToonTown for three and a half busy days. The first day we gathered the ladies and explained the site to them. Our first hurdle: in order to post their products on the site a photo of the woman who made it must accompany the post. The women are shy to say the least and most said that their husbands would not want their pictures online. So we rounded up the husbands, who after listening to a full explanation of what exactly the site will provide for the women, had no objections to their wives photos being online. Phew.

That afternoon, we interviewed each of the women and from that we created a short bio on each of the ladies. When the site is open you will be able to see all of this.

The next day, we set out into the mountains to train the women how to use a camera. Just to give you an idea of where we were starting from, I handed my camera to one of the ladies and she put it up to her eye with the lens facing her. We worked through a photography 101 session on how to hold it, what the buttons do, how to center an object, what time of day is best for taking pictures, etc...Pleasingly the women did well for themselves.

The following day, we took Rabha to a local cyber (internet cafe) and began training her on how to use the site and how to upload pictures. While the site is designed to be user friendly (no words, just pictures/icons) it is a lot of information for someone who never uses computers. Just getting to the Anou page is a task in itself for her. She practiced over and over and over again and after a few hours she was much faster at the process. We met again the next morning and had her do it all over again. And over and over again.

The way the site is programmed; when someone buys a product the artisan who made it and the president of the coop receive a text with the item number and the address to send it to. They must then text back confirmation and head to the post office. Once sent, they send a second text confirming it has been shipped. The money is then transferred to the coop's bank account.

Dan initiated a text for the sake of practice (he actually bought a carpet and texted Rabha the address of a friend back in the USA) she received the text, sent her confirmation text and we all headed to the post office together to send it. When Dan was satisfied with her progress he said goodbye and headed on to the next village to continue training artisans across Morocco.

It's now up to me to make sure Rabha practices using the site each week. We've adopted a schedule of meeting with the ladies one day and having them take pictures of their carpets and then the following day Rabha and I meet at the cyber and she uploads the photos to the site.

The women are enjoying going into the mountains and fields to take photos of their products and are learning more and more each day. Each product must have five photos; basic photo of entire product, close up on design, product with a landscape background, reverse side of product and a photo of the product with the woman who created it.

The women are eager and on the first day they wanted to bring all of their stock with them to photograph. I explained that we needed to work shwiya b shwiya (little by little) and in smaller sessions.   After the second set of sessions, they realized why I insisted on smaller sessions. Rabha admitted that she had thought I just didn't want to work a lot and happily today she apologized and said now she knows why I was so insistent on small sessions.

It is a lot to remember, especially when we are at the cyber. She makes the same basic mistakes and we correct them together over and over again, but the reality is that she is on information overload. I am confident she will get the hang of it and be breezing through the process by the time I finish here. But for now, I don't think my patience has ever been tried so hard. I sit next to her in the cyber and in my head I tell myself 'patience, patience, patience' over and over and over again. It is good for me though.

And it is so rewarding to watch them progress and the smiles on their faces when they do well. They are proud of themselves and I am proud of them.

If you look here you can see pictures of our training with Dan.

And if you look here you can watch a short video of Dan and Rabha, which I filmed after the training.

He is still working on sorting a few minor bugs out with the site, but it will open sometime this summer.  So please check back...

About Dan: Dan is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Morocco (2008-2010). He then moved to Yemen and got a job starting up a newspaper, which was all going well until the Arab Spring when he was forced to leave the country (he has some pretty interesting stories about his time there!). He first thought about the need for a site like a Anou when he was in the Peace Corps and while in Yemen he saw more and more middlemen and the idea never strayed too far. Upon being told to leave the country, he decided to return to Morocco and give Anou a shot...and boy are we glad he did!

Miriam x