Really understanding it all (Laurie Miller)

We've now spent five full days with our new friends at OFPPT - the Vocational Training organization in Morocco - and we "get it." While the challenges they're facing aren't potentially life-threatening like those of our fellow teammates who work with ALCS (the AIDS foundation) or CHU (one of the local hospitals, where they are working on tightening up the pharmaceutical distribution process), the things we're working on with OFPPT do affect the quality of life in Morocco - for thousands of young people who might otherwise choose not to work, and for those already working who have the opportunity to enrich their lives through additional learning at work.

On Friday, we visited the OFPPT center in downtown Casa, where we talked with students in the Building sector learning area. I was struck by the number of women in this industry who are learning about the construction industry - fully two-thirds of a CAD/CAM class was filled with women learning about architecture and building construction there. There was one computer for every two or three students, and all were hard at work learning when we arrived.
Next we went to a wood working shop, where students were learning to make furniture.

Then, we headed over to the design school, where students were learning some old forms of decoration, that might be used in a home on walls or as the basis for a design on furniture. I talked with a few students there - one said she was here because after a year at university, she realized she could come to OFPPT for far less money, learn the same trade, and be done in a couple of years instead of four, with a better opportunity to get a job. Another young woman told me that she wants to open her own design business, and that this will be great training for that. And a third said she loves art and drawing, and this is a way to do that and make a living simultaneously.

We then went to the metal working area, where students were working on metal joints for some sort of rebar structure - I'm not going to pretend to know all about that - and the young man I talked to said that he was already working in this area, but he knows he could get a higher salary if he learned from OFPPT, so he's spending the time (I think his curriculum is six months long) to have the diploma, to raise his standard of living. And another boy - just 15 years old - was learning the trade to secure his future.

So we're finding that for the students already in OFPPT, they like it, they see the value, and the returns are great. The issue we're working on is how to get the word out - how to reach the people who aren't enrolling, whose parents think that OFPPT is not good enough, whose friends believe that this sort of learning is just 'second best' to a University education.

We've nailed down our statement of work with our client, and we're beginning to make some inroads in the headquarters organization to understand the process of communications, and how we can help. More to come!

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