A wide variety of contributors from women’s organisations, to Danish and Moroccan artists and craftswomen meet to exchange experiences. The objective is to strengthen the level of participation the Moroccan women have in the areas of leadership and economy by means of commonly defined activities. In this project, Moroccan and Danish grassroots organisations and other NGOs tackle the following challenges:

• How to strengthen women’s access to the labour market and their possibilities of earning an income?
• How to  increase the number of women entrepreneurs starting up their own businesses?
• How to secure/improve the implementation and amelioration of working rights for women and how to engage more women in the work of the trade unions?
• How to increase the number of women in leading positions at the labour market and within the trade unions? 

The project focuses on:  

• Increasing women’s economic opportunities and their economic participation and contribution in Morocco
• Increasing women's economic leadership in the Moroccan society
• Strengthening the capacity of project partners to work through partnerships and to provide and document insights that may be of benefits for other projects under Partnership for Dialogue and Reform (previously named the Danish-Arab Partnership programme)  

Activities will take place from January 2011 until December 2012 as a part of KVINFO’s key focus area ‘Women in the Public Sphere’. 

Empowering civil society

A tradition for grassroots organisations exist in both Denmark and Morocco – both of which have large and dynamic civil societies. The Danish and Moroccan partners in the project make use of each other’s experience within the projects focus areas to improve their own work. This knowledge and experience sharing is made possible through the establishment of international networks, joint activities, seminars and study trips. The partners, and the target groups they assist, gain the opportunity to participate in each other’s activities and learn from others who work with the same challenges.

The project partners

By working to strengthen women’s economic participation in society, The Danish Design School, Collège LaSalle Marrakech and the Moroccan NGO Planet Finance Maroc jointly support women a network of women artists and craftswomen, Reseau Femmes Artisanes Marrakech.

In order to support the increase of women entrepreneurs and in a broader sense strengthen women's economic opportunities 2 mentoring networks have been established in cooporation between Association des Femmes Chefs d'Entreprises du Maroc,the Danish trade union DJØF as well as KVINFO's mentoring network. 

Furthermore, a number of trade unions from both countries are involved in the women in union politics focus area.

From Morocco: Union Générale de Travailleurs au Maroc, Union Nationale Marocaine du Travail, Union Marocaine de Travail, Confédération Démocratique des Travailleurs, Fédération Démocratique des Travailleurs, Organisation Démocratique des Travailleurs.

From Denmark: LO, 3F, DM and others.

Finally, Moroccan NGOs such as Association Solidarité Féminine and Centre des Droits des Gens, Fes, will be involved in activities in relation to VAW (violence against women) at the workplace and at the integration of single mothers at the regular labour market, awareness raising activities aiming at changing the public opinion on this particular group of citizens and at the development of strategies for obtaining long-term legal changes in the field.

For more info about this project

Please contact:

Lene Ingvartsen

Programme Adviser
E-mail: lene.ingvartsen@kvinfo.dk
Tlf: 50 76 33 63
Skype: lenekvinfo