One of the subjects we learned today was how rural artisan woman in Moroccan communities are gaining more opportunities to make profit. The model in the past has been that the women have to pay a middleman to sell their product and they only end up with 4% of the profit. Also, because most of the woman are illiterate, they have trouble accessing things like Etsy where they can sell their items online and make more money. This discourages future generations to take part in learning a craft because there is no room for making a decent amount of money. The Anou website is a platform where these rural craftswomen can utilize a place to sell their goods without having to be able to read. It was designed to be very user friendly which encourages more people to sell their goods online to make more money and hopefully keep their art alive.
One interesting thing I learned about this business model is that even though this method is easy to learn it still has to be taught. An employee will travel out to the rural villages and teach the woman how to utilize the site to their full advantage. Due to the fact that this initiative is only a startup in its initial stages of production there are very few employees. Therefore, the women are encouraged to share this website with all the other woman in the village and surrounding area to help them get fair pay. What stood out to me most was how the success of this platform depends on the community. With women teaching and supporting one another so that entire villages can preserve their crafts while also finally earning fair profit from their work is very heartwarming.
Sometimes I think about where the products I buy come from and who made them, but most of the time it is easy to overlook. I understand where the products come from, but I don’t think about what situation it took to actually create and ship a product so I can get my hands on it.
Learning about rural craftswomen in Morocco made me realize how many people and how much work can be behind a single item. Before, I would mostly focus on the product itself or the price, but now I think more about whether the people making it are actually benefiting from their work. It also made me appreciate handmade goods more because they often represent someone’s culture, skill, and livelihood rather than just something being mass produced in a factory.
Anyway, here’s my rug I bought. I probably paid too much for it, and I bought it in a souk in the Rabat medina from a middleman. This was 3 days before I knew anything about the unfair wages I promise I didn’t do that on purpose. So, all I can do now is give the woman who made my rug her flowers because I appreciate the hard work she put on my rug. Thank you Moroccan rural craftswomen for all your hard work!
