The municipality of Chefchaouen and MedCities have organised a series of trainings for local businesses and cooperatives of the local tourist sector to help designing strategies to reduce their activity’s carbon print and promote innovation. Small businesses that produce or sell hand-made or agricultural products are also taking part in this initiative. 

The first three sessions, that took place during the month of April, were animated by professor Mr Chaib and addressed the causes, effects and strategies related to climate change adaptation. The participants, representing small businesses and cooperatives of Chefchaouen, were asked to participate actively through the three sessions and end up presenting projects they would like to put through to reduce the carbon print of their activity or promote a more efficient use of resources. Some of these include building a small and handy mobile solar panel system to charge phones on the street, or the introduction of recycling schemes in the hand-made and artisan local sector so as to produce new items from the unwanted materials. 

The second module was animated by expert Mme Laghdas and brought together 20 participants to discuss e-commerce and innovative strategies to design, publicise, and sell products and services. This training was deemed very useful to understand the online platforms and tools available to local and small businesses in Chefchaouen. 

The last of the three modules will take place early May and will focus on social innovation and the principles and legal framing of setting up a cooperative in Morocco, as a model for self-organisation, social added value and responsible management. 

Participants will receive a certificate accounting for their participation in the training at the occasion of the final event of the project, which will be held under a hybrid format, in Chefchaouen and online with the participation of international partners of the project.