ANDD was another really interesting look at how entrepreneurship support can show up in different ways. On the surface it felt familiar, there was mentoring, training, networking, and workshops, which has honestly been a running theme throughout this whole trip. But what made ANDD stand out from everything else we have seen so far was how much they leaned into digital inclusion as their thing. A lot of the other organizations we visited were focused on helping people build and launch ventures, which is great, but ANDD was specifically focused on making sure the people they work with actually know how to exist and grow in a digital world. Teaching women how to use digital tools, build visibility online, and modernize how they run their businesses is a different kind of support and honestly one that feels really relevant right now. It reminded me of Anou in a lot of ways because at the core both are about empowering women artisans to take ownership of their work and actually profit from it, but the approach is really different. Anou built a simpler platform so the women could use it without needing a lot of technical knowledge, while ANDD does the opposite and actually teaches the women how to use the tools themselves, the more complex ones like AI editing, CapCut, and ChatGPT. Same mission of giving women control, just two completely different ways of getting there. One thing that also stood out was that as a nonprofit ANDD relies heavily on sponsorships to keep things running, which is a challenge that the government backed programs we visited simply do not have to think about in the same way. It made their work feel a lot more personal and community driven because of it.

After the visit we got to meet some of the women who had actually gone through the programs and that was honestly the best part of the day. Every single one of them was doing something different, traditional clothing, embroidery, natural cosmetics, rental homes, but what they all had in common was that they had figured out how to take what they were already good at and bring it online. They were using AI tools to edit and clean up their photos, CapCut for videos, ChatGPT to write professional captions, and growing their Instagram accounts to reach customers way beyond their immediate circle. What really got me though was how supportive they were of each other. They were not competing, they were actively trying to be each other’s customers and build something together. It reminded me a lot of the cooperative model we kept seeing throughout the trip, that idea of women lifting each other up instead of elbowing each other out. And that to me was the biggest thing they all had in common, not just the tools they used or the businesses they built, but the fact that they were all genuinely rooting for each other to win.

After all of that Aanya and I went down to do a little shopping and I ended up stopping by my host brother’s shop to look at duffle bags. He gave me what he called the host sister price which was already way better than anything I had seen anywhere else, but I was 100 dirhams short and he did not have a smaller size that would have brought the price down. I genuinely felt so bad and told him I would just go buy it somewhere else because I did not want him to take a loss on it, but he looked at me and said his mother Fatima would kill him if he did not give it to me. So I walked out of there with a leather duffle bag for 400 dirhams and a lot of feelings about it. I love my host family so much, shoutout to my host brother for the extra discount even though I truly felt terrible about the whole thing. Oh and I also got to meet Mimi, the shop cat, who was very much in charge of the whole operation and absolutely adorable.