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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Updates and Protests

Hello readers,

Ugh, I am probably the worst person to maintain a blog.  Sorry to those of you who want to see more posts.  I will get my act together!

Anyway, I have started to develop and initiate some projects with cooperative Najah, the wood carving cooperative that I am assisting.  Currently, I am planning on performing a site renovation project, since cooperative Najah's work conditions are in need of some serious repairs.  Through a personal donation and strong exchange rate, I should be able to greatly help Najah with some needed improvements.

I also started developing an Artisan business management application, so that Artisan's in Morocco, such as cooperative Najah, can manage their customers, inventory, events, and finances more effectively.  With a push of a button, the application runs in French, English, and Arabic.  It works with all operating systems that have a web browser.  Lastly, it doesn't need to be installed, but rather just copied on to any computer, since I wrote it in javascript with sqlite.

I plan on working with cooperative Najah to better understand their needs regarding technology and Artisana business in Morocco.  Najah currently has a website that was created by a previous volunteer.  The url is as follows: www.cooperativenajah.webs.com.  I am in the process of obtaining a grant to get the coop a computer so that they can maintain their site more conveniently and use the business application that I am building.  Additionally, I will be teaching English to women at an association that makes beautiful rugs.  Also, I am planning on building a literacy application.

All last week, I attended a week long Peace Corps seminar in Azrou.  It was nice to follow up with the other first year volunteers and collaborate on project ideas and upcoming events.  After the seminar, when I returned to my site, I found that the middle Eastern unrest had spilled into my city.  Some of the banks in my city were severely vandalized, as well as other buildings.  Currently, there are protests, but they appear to be peaceful.  In all, people in my site seem to be going on with their days, as if this will shortly blow over.  This is definitely very interesting and eye-openning.

Thank you,