SAP Shoroq in Morocco

... so did the Social Sabbatical last Saturday. On Friday we had our closing event with all teams and the host clients. It was organized as a panel discussion where every team first summarized its experience from the past 4 weeks and then was asked different questions about the project. After the event it was time for the first round of farewell, we had to say goodbye to our hosts with whom we spent most of the time during our stay. I was glad to get a traditional Moroccan Shirt of Adnane's fashion brand that perfectly complements my new babouches. Do you like it? 😜 In the evening we celebrated. We started with our final dinner together as a global SAP team (at least the last one for now, who knows, maybe there will be some reunion in future) in a French restaurant accompanied by Jazz music. As my birthday was on Saturday, some colleagues already started to celebrate with me some hours early. 😉 We continued and finally ended our party in the bar next to our hotel....

Our last week in Rabat is nearly over. What a week. I am really happy that I had the chance to be part of two amazing events: on Tuesday, we held our final presentation with our client and today we met Muhammad Yunus, the 'rock star' of social business at a panel discussion in Casablanca. Due to meeting conflicts, our final presentation was surprisingly scheduled on Tuesday evening and not on Wednesday. Although we were really busy in finishing everything earlier, the good thing was that we had no time to get worried if we missed anything or to get nervous before the meeting. At 6 pm we came together at DARE space with Marwane, Ahmed and Adnane from MCISE and Malika and Mehdi from Pyxera to present our findings and recommendations to them. The recommendations were very well received and the feedback was super positive. All the work that we invested during the last 4 weeks was really worth it. Even better: The next day we learned that some of our recommendations were alread...

The first stop of our last weekend in Morocco was Chefchaouen, a small city in northwest Morocco in the Rif mountains. The city is known for its blue painted houses that's why it is also referred to as 'Blue Pearl'. We spent the day strolling through the small alleys and enjoying their colorful appearance. Later in the afternoon, we visited the Kasbah, before we walked up to the Mosque Bouzâafar, from where we enjoyed the sunset. From our dinner place we had a nice night view over the marketplace Outa el Hammam.  On Sunday we went hiking to the Cascades d'Akchour. Thus, we got up early to avoid the heat and the crowds. Our hike was split in two parts: first, we approached the God's Bridge, a natural stone Arch crossing the valley. On the way up, we had to cross the small river several times. There were also short climbing passages. The second part was to the smaller waterfall of the cascades. The walk up there was comparatively...

Week 3 is already over? Time was flying by already before but this week felt like a day.  The week started with an interview with Amid, one of the mentors. He coaches the startups in communication, marketing and business strategy. After working with Maroc Telecom, he started working as a freelancer to support companies like MCISE with mentoring. He joined MCISE a year ago. Generally he meets the startups once a month for 2 hours. Last year, he supported 25 startups at MCISE. According to him their biggest challenge is the long-term vision and to think big. He is working as a mentor because he is challenged himself, he enjoys the contact with these young entrepreneurs and he loves their stories. Before he joined MCISE, he didn't know about social entrepreneurship at all, so he learned a lot from his first engagements. Finally, he left an advice for MCISE: he recommends to open up additional branches in Fès, Casablanca and especially Tangier as their are most of the internationa...

As with the previous weekend posts, I don't spend too much time on words but prefer to let pictures speak by themselves. We started the weekend in Fès, the second largest city of Morocco and the oldest of the 4 royal cities. Its Medina has been protected as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. Our first stop was at the house of Mehdi's mother Fatima, who invited us for a tea and delicious pastries. From there, we were brought to our Riads, before Fatima provided a guided tour through the Medina with a lot of shopping. If you need support for bargaining, she is an absolute expert. :)  View from our roof terrace Patio of our Riad Bab Boujeloud (Blue Gate) Souk Leather tannery Leather shop After our joined dinner, we had the chance to visit the Festival de Fès de La Culture Soufie . Sufi music is based on Sufism and is generally meant as an expression of devotion to God. Team dinner Festival de La Culture Soufie S...