Today we learned about artisan women and the journey from making $1 a day to becoming the breadwinners of their households. This line cracked me up in class because the women in my host family’s house are always making sure I’m the breadwinner. Without fail, they make sure I can finish an entire circular loaf of bread with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I was completely shocked when our guest speaker told us that artisan women only earn 4% of the price of the items sold. To put this into perspective, for a large $200 rug, the women would only make $8. In this context, it is crazy to think about. This statistic and the information shared at the beginning of the presentation left me feeling that the women were powerless.

That’s why I am so thankful for the Anou cooperative, which gave power back to the women by giving them a platform to fairly trade their products. One unique thing that I loved about this business model was the idea that once some of the women were trained on how to use the site to sell their rugs and other items, they could then teach other women and educate their children about it. In my mind, this is the most important thing when implementing a tool to improve something: not only that it works, but that it can be sustained over time. I also think this is such a great way to encourage the younger generation to continue the women’s work because they can now see their success.

After class, I went to the beach with my friends in my swimsuit from SHEIN, a website that offers items at lower prices because they source their clothing from sweatshops. I’ve worn this swimsuit before, but I had never really thought about the workers behind it and how they are paid and treated for their craft.

After our beach lunch break, we went back to class for a lecture on the ecosystem of Moroccan startups. I found it very interesting to look at all of the startups individually and see how they are all interconnected. This will impact my site visit tomorrow because, even though it is not the company I am writing my paper on, it is still a company within the Moroccan ecosystem. Therefore, they may face some of the same problems as my company and may even have solutions to those challenges.