Everybody Has a Voice Workshops in Ouarzazate, Zagoura and Tinghir.

By Thomas Duncan, 2013-2015 Stage

This winter we organized "Everybody Has a Voice" workshops for women’s associations from the provinces of Ouarzazate, Zagoura, and Tinghir.

They were huge successes. 15 different communities throughout the three provinces were represented, with a total of 57 participants, 50 of them women.

The workshops aimed to give women a forum to discuss their issues, collaborate on how to move forward together and provide professional experience, networking opportunities, and communication skills development. We also wanted to give women tools to do further collaborative work on their own.

To prepare for the workshop, we asked each participating association to create an artistic representation of an issue/issues facing women in their particular community. While the assignment was abstract, the women responded with some really powerful artwork
about really tough issues.

For many of the women, this was their first professional event. We discussed how feeling nervous was natural, but that everyone was in it together and that they could help each other, encourage each other to speak out and to offer ideas. Most of the women said that in their communities they do not have a place to discuss their issues, and often feel ignored. This meant that encouraging them to really discuss tough issues was actually a bit of a challenge.

Dar America from the U.S. Consulate funded the workshops, and we collaborated with CorpsAFrica on the framework.  A number of local associations contributed as well. Ouarzazate eNews, a youth journalism organization, covered all of the events. The added elements of journalists and photographers—snapping photos during the workshops and interviewing some of the women—really provided participants with a sense of importance and professionalism.

Individual event highlights:

Zagoura Province:
The women said they never considered before to gather with similar associations to work together or share ideas. Through conversation they discovered they all face the same issues, but on different levels, and can really use each other's help and perspectives. They said that as women in rural Morocco they feel ignored and have no place to discuss their issues. Other topics discussed included poor health care and having to do all the work for their families in harsh natural conditions, as well as violence against women.

Artistic Representations included paintings showing women doing all the farm work, having to trudge through sand dunes to carry harvests, and falling ill with no access to medical care. Youth from Zagoura put on a play about violence against women and families.

Ouarzazate Province:
Ouarzazate is home to a well-established women's association called Oxygene. Oxygene was able to collaborate with very rural and relatively young associations, such as the women from Ouiselsat where women weave carpets for a living and often feel taken advantage of by the vendors (all male) who buy their carpets and sell them at huge markups, with the women seeing none of those profits.  The ability to learn how to articulate this issue was a big benefit to a number of the associations. The women from Taznakht made a carpet especially for this workshop, depicting a woman with her hands up, as if saying "I've had enough of all that I have to deal with!"

Tinghir Province:
Most of the women in Tinghir said they have no place in their communities to discuss their issues and that they had never been to any formal professional event like this before. One woman said she was so nervous/excited she could not keep her legs from shaking!

Artistic representations included a painting from an association in Mcissy, depicting a pregnant woman who had been abandoned by her husband, left to do all of the work providing income for and taking care of her other children.

The organizing committee of these workshops intends to follow up with these associations to see if and how they are using each other’s help.  We hope to offer these workshops again next year and extend that work, bringing all of the women from the individual provinces together for a conference.  

Breaking the Silence about Sexual Harassment: Stories from the Field

Breaking the Silence about Sexual Harassment: Moroccans Speak out!, the three-part video series produced by GlobalGirl Media in partnership with the GAD Committee, addresses the important issue of sexual harassment from the perspective of Moroccan men and women.

Since it was released in November 2013, PCVs across Morocco have been utilizing both the video and the GAD-created toolkit to facilitate meaningful discussions about sexual harassment in their communities. The toolkit includes discussion questions and activities for all three parts of the video, with translations in French and Arabic for working with counterparts.

Over the course of the last few months, several PCVs have had success showing the video and leading the corresponding discussion questions and activities in a variety of settings and with a range of audiences. Mike Maruca, for example, screened the video in the Berkane Dar Chebab with a group of young men and one young woman. Krista Jorstad, also in Berkane, showed the video and facilitated a lively discussion at the local Women’s Center. Down south in Akka, Kate Grey showed the video over the course of 3 Saturdays to a group of girls with great results. Jeff and Jessamyn Yoder showed the video to a mixed-gender group of university students as well as to a group of younger girls at the Nedi Neswi. In Ted Rizzo’s site, an enthusiastic counterpart led a screening and discussion with a group of girls at the local Dar Taliba. Bonnie Torre hosted an event with 75 high school students that has inspired additional events like it in the upcoming months.

Below are the stories and comments from just a few of those who have led successful activities with Breaking the Silence about Sexual Harassment: Moroccans Speak out! in their communities. We hope their experiences will inspire you as much as they have us!

Mike Maruca, Berkane:

On December 19th I screened the GAD movie "Breaking the Silence" video at my Dar Chebab. Last year, I had problems after doing a GAD-themed class on street harassment with my usual English class. Many of them didn't return after that day. I think the main problem was that I taught the class too early in the course. The participants hadn't had enough of an opportunity to bond together beforehand. This year, I have an IYF class which has been meeting for a couple of months, and we'd already done a class on gender roles and stereotypes, which went fairly well.

December 19th is one of the shortest days of the year. Since it gets dark so early, I decided to do a 'Movie Week', hoping in part to kick off a film club (which has not taken off). Each day I showed a movie in the evening. I scheduled the "Breaking the Silence" video for Thursday, when my IYF group was meeting anyway. The majority of viewers and discussion participants were drawn from my class- mainly high-school men and up, with only one young woman participating (and 18 young men). We watched all three parts of the movie, and I led short discussions in between each section, drawing questions from the packet.

Responses were mainly positive. The viewers recognized harassment as a legitimate problem. I got the impression that it was the first time many of the men had actually "heard a woman out" on the subject. One man in particular noted that the idea of expanding safe zones beyond the house and the mosque is silly- people should strive to make entire cities safe zones, not just a particular area.

I had my mudir helping me, another IYF counterpart was on the scene, and my sitemate, Krista Jorstad, was there as well. The young woman who participated later borrowed the film and manual and showed it to a group of women.

In short, the movie screening went well.

Jeff and JessamynYoder, Beni Mellal:

We showed the video Breaking the Silence About Sexual Harassment: Moroccans Speak out! by Global Girl Media to a group of six women and six men at the youth center. The participants were university students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, and were all advanced English speakers since they had actually come for our advanced English class. We did not have a counterpart since any counterpart we might have used would have been from this class anyway. In fact, when we later showed the video to another group of girls, a woman from this class helped lead discussion.

    

We watched each part and discussed it over three sessions, so we had plenty of time. Everyone was involved in the discussion, and they all agreed that sexual harassment exists and that it’s a big problem. Some new outcomes were that the men came to see the women’s point of view instead of relying on how they think women feel, and the women came to see that they should stop blaming themselves and each other for sexual harassment. Of course, there were some cringeworthy moments involving stereotypes and assumptions, but the most important thing was that they were excited by the subject and wished to continue dialogue outside of class.

Unfortunately, the participants were not hopeful concerning change in the near future, even when considering new laws on the matter. They understand the cultural barriers, but stated that they are happy to open the discussion and to be sure to call a spade a spade instead of promoting falsehoods, or worse, saying nothing at all.

Bonnie Torre, Zagora:

Mid-January, a student of mine named Khadija was inspired to lead a discussion on sexual harassment after watching the “Breaking the Silence” videos. My site is very conservative—so much so that in the past when I've broached the topic of sexual harassment informally with friends, I have been answered with nothing but awkward silence—and the high level of harassment has been a big struggle for me, so I was both stunned and thrilled when Khadija suggested having such a discussion. Khadija recruited an Islamic studies teacher (who happens to be the only female teacher in my site) to help her on the day of the discussion. The day before the event was to take place, Khadija told me that when she mentioned the event to her (female) neighbors, they urged her to cancel it.

More than 75 high school students came to the event, including some young people who were not students at the high school where it was being held, and boys and girls were represented more or less equally. Khadija made an introductory speech, showed the Breaking the Silence, and began to facilitate the discussion.

Unfortunately, the discussion wasn't exactly productive; in fact, almost immediately, it turned into a screaming match between the boys and the girls. Flying in the face of the idea that the younger generation is supposedly more liberal, every boy who stood up said that girls deserve harassment when they are not wearing hijab. (It should be noted that only one girl present, including myself, had a bare head, yet all the girls had stories about being harassed.) The girls fired back with stories about their personal experiences, and one girl gave an impassioned speech about a two-year-old girl who had recently been raped in my site. We ran out of time and had to continue the event the following week in order to finish. More than 90 kids came to the second part of the discussion.

Although the opinions were very extreme with no crossover between the genders at all, I was absolutely shocked by the number of students who attended and how passionate they were about the subject. Both sides clearly felt very strongly about the issue, and it was very touching to see them get a chance to talk about a subject they normally can't discuss. I believe this was a great first step towards greater compassion and perhaps even change. Even though it does not appear that either the boys or the girls left with a full understanding of how the other side feels, they at least heard each other out.

Khadija was discouraged after the discussions because of how wild they became, but now she is talking about doing another event on sexual harassment, this time without boys. When I asked Khadija why she only wanted girls at the next event, she said, “I want them to break the silence!”

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After reading about the great experience these PCVs have had with showing the video, you may be wondering, “Where can I get my hands on that awesome video and toolkit?”

There are many ways you can access these resources. USBs, containing all of the resources in electronic form, are available at the library for you to check out (and return later). Remember, some USBs have already been distributed to PCVs throughout Morocco, so ask your region-mates if they have one you can borrow! Alternatively, the Peace Corps library in Rabat has DVDs and hard copies of the toolkits for you to grab whenever you wish. You can even take some copies for any local associations you think will use them. If you’re still having trouble finding a copy, the resources are also available online on our GAD Maroc Google Drive.