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How Traditional Trades are helping Rebuild Communities in Morocco
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Last year’s earthquake damaged not only infrastructure in Morocco, but also impacted the economy, notably in the rural Rhamna province between Casablanca and Marrakesh. Locals however, are using traditional skills such as weaving and horticulture to create opportunities to revive the local economy.
Rundown villages in the Rhamna province south of Casablanca show the scars of the earthquake that struck the country in September 2023. It was particularly devastating for this region, destroying more than 50,000 houses and leaving many homeless, jobless and destitute.
Farming, road and health infrastructure were wiped out, with repercussions for young people's education. The community has been quick to get back on its feet, with the launch of job creation initiatives and efforts to encourage young people to back to school or enroll in vocational training.
Local materials for affordable and sustainable construction
The Rhamna Women's Initiative Association (AIFR, link in French) has started several projects that tap into traditional skills to create jobs in farming and crafts. Initiatives that it hopes will play a role in the growth of the province’s economic and social development of over time.
One such project is a huge greenhouse built in Rhamna, a horticultural nursery cultivating plants, shrubs and trees to supply locally grown plants to the town and farmers in the region. The project will generate jobs for the local workforce.
Traditional skills are also being used in the House of Wool, another project coordinated by the Rhamna Women's Initiative Association. The cooperative is creating connections across generations, with ancestral techniques being passed down to younger people, while weaving a solid economic fabric in towns.
Passing skills from one generation to another
Fatima Boumehdi has been weaving wool since her mother taught her when she was a girl. She said the project employs six women at the moment, but when they receive a large, they "bring in other people and there can be up to 50 women” involved.
Among the reconstruction projects launched in the wake of last year’s earthquake, AIFR is supporting an initiative taken by Rachid Bouqartacha, an architect who specializes in using local materials in construction. As part of the program, young people are brought in to learn building trades via traditional, ancestral methods, and using natural, eco-friendly materials.
Once trained, the young people " go back to their villages and set up small businesses or cooperatives to help rebuild them,” says Bouqartacha.
AFD is providing support to this initiative as it addresses some of the major issues of our era, from coping with climate disasters, to providing the skills and knowledge communities will need to recover from them.