The Anou Cooperative is run by women artisans . My favorite part of the lecture was when we were guessing the percentage of money the artisans take home. I guessed 35%, when the correct answer is 4%. This stood out to me. We leaned about the supply chain and how crafts were sold. Since most of the artisans live in rural areas, there is a middleman who sells it for them. The merchant takes pretty much takes all the money made from the purchase. I found it wild that they only keep 4% of the money for the craft they made. As a result, many artisans are living in poverty. This can lead to a lack of creativity and new products because they money cannot support the lifestyle. However, the Anou Cooperative is working on raising these levels. Creators are now able to make 20% or more on their own crafts because of the Anou Cooperative. In addition, I found it interesting how many of the women are illiterate. As a result, the Anou Cooperative has to customize its site so women know how to use it. Lastly, The Anou Cooperative has led to progress for women in the artisans field and is making the lifestyle more suitable.
The second lecture focused Startup Ecosystems. My favorite fun fact from the lecture was that only 3% of Moroccan citizens own a credit card. This is a striking difference from America. I mean, my mom and dad each have one credit card, and I think my mom has 2. We learned that Moroccan banks are less likely to give out loans than banks in the United States. It is harder to start a business because there is even more pressure. If you are not successful one time, the bank will not give you another loan. A turning point in starting ecosystems was COVID. COVID allowed for a switch to digital products. Morocco was forced to evolve into a digital country. As a result, new ecosystems of startups have been created. There was another stat that showed the increase in new businesses started. I do not remember the numbers, but there was a significant increase.
It may sound wrong, but I have never thought about how my clothes were made. I never thought about who makes them and the process. It is eye-opening to learn about how clothes are really produced. It gives you more perspective. The lectures really gave me good information for our site visits. We learned how the government is connected to the funders who are connected to the university. We learned about the structure. Lastly, my group stayed after class and we were able to build questions about SWOT analysis from the lecture.