Trash into Toys in Sidi Kaouki

Keeping up with the community engagement activities particularly with Sidi Kaouki children, (you can read our previous activities here

On 19.03.2018, I went to the village with some of our trash that we produce in the house.

Amina (our friend from the village) hosted me in her house and Yassin her son invited the kids. Seven attended the Trash into Toys workshop the lasted 90 minutes as following:
1- The workshop was started by an introduction about reusing the trash.
2- The children started sketching toys they want to own.

3- Choosing from the trash what is needed to build up their toys
4- Execution ( this is always fun since they keep changing their initial ideas :smiley: )
5- painting

So in the beginning, three wanted to make a Spongebob toy, but then it turned to 3 robots, one automobile, a man and drums. As we intend to foster creative thinking, we acknowledge change as really important and put more importance on the process than on the outcomes (even though everyone ends up with a cool toy in the end).

Music from Trash

In the end, all of the kids were happy with their new toys and realized that the usual trash we produce everyday can be turned into something very valuable, even if it is just for them.

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That’s really impressive in 90 minutes, @HadeerGhareeb! Did the kids ask to do more of this? Do you have any followup, or plan to gather any?

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Actually this is the 3rd upcycling workshop we have with them, @Komitas and I were thinking of making it as a curriculum. We started with the juggling clubs from 3 materials only (wood stickes, plastic bags and plastic bottles) then wallets from (newspapers and milk boxes) and now toys from everything. Feels like they absorbed the concept of reusing well, even I feel like they dont produce as much trash as we do. They asked for more meeting to try different things and new toys, and we established good connection with the families.
I am planning to do more workshopss whenever we collect a suitable bile of trash at the house :smiley:

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Wow. Same kids on all three workshops? Or different ones?

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There are 6 attended all and we easily find them at the same time since they all have the same school schedule. With others since the school have different schedule to the different level we cant always have them.

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Would you guys be interested in connecting a music producer from Morocco in order to record those workshops and use them for a specific music project? Labels, platforms and a few artists could be interested in such action.

Could be a good way to bring some light on the Trash into Toys actions, Edgeryders, and the local community in Siding Kaouiki ?

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Wow, this kind of networking is always helpful. We can disscuss the collaberation to execute in mid April, since crazily, I think attracting attention to what we do here in Morocco is not always favorable :smiley:

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good job
i really liked the idea of the workshop and how simple , fun and easy to do . I am impressed by your time management specially while working with kids which is something really hard to accomplish . I suggest inviting more kids to participate in such workshops to recycle more trash and to make the " making toys of trash " cultural more familiar .

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Let me know, whenever (and if) you feel good to. :smiley:

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Wait, what? Can you elaborate? :smirk:

According to Mohamed Mady a community leader in Sidi Kaouki, it is not accepted by the authorities to coomunicate with the local families.
@islem @Sofien-Dahem and @m_tantawy were there when I was disscussing with him doing the workshops at the local houses.

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it is not accepted by the authorities to coomunicate with the local families.

@HadeerGhareeb note that I thought about inviting a moroccan artist, specifically to avoid two things:

  • the post/neo colonial vision of an occidental artist making his work in Africa, and a local community finding some light though that and by this white/occidental figure.
  • the political aspect of such action, that I think could be resolved by inviting a “local” or “national” artist to do it.

Two birds, one stone.

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Yes, great.
How can we start?

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Well, here is how I would process, step by step:

1 getting in touch with an artist able to record (and maybe produce?) in Sidi Kaouiki, or basically on location
2 getting in touch with a platform able to distribute the result of the collaboration, the way you and the artist agree on
3 getting the result released and promoted via as much canals as possible

Note : sometimes, two of these very simple steps are crossing each other on your timeline. No big deal though.

1 - GETTING IN TOUCH WITH AN ARTIST

it is the biggest part of the work.
You need a very specific profile of artist: you need him able to record on location (so you need someone with nomad equipment, if you can’t provide it to him), and maybe produce on location as well : those two aspects will probably lead you more into electronic music than any music with instruments btw… You also need him/her to be from Morocco for the reasons previously discussed.
You can find this kind of artist on a platform named BANDCAMP. It’s a very known and prosper distribution platform for independent artists, making a real INCREDIBLE work on every aspect of the music industry business. The website is very well conceived, and you can dig out plenty of talents from everywhere around the globe. Try out some hashtags linked to your researched profile (“morocco”, “sidi kaouiki”, “essaouira”), and try to get in touch with the artist you’re interested by. If you want a little help, I might still have a few contacts in the Now, what an artist and music producer needs to know first is what the project will give and take to/from him/her. It can be a lot of things here:
give: the experience of working with a community of do-ers, exp of working with youth, the ecological / transmission / educationnal / creative mindset, money (?), hardware and equipment (?), support of Edgeryders (?), proper release on bandcamp for instance (and streaming/distribution platform), and anything that comes to your mind.
take: time (how much? more or less…), hardware and equipment (depending on how nomadic is his/her production set up), and that might be it, as you don’t want this list to be too deep ahah!
note that I’m not saying that artists are always self centered people only thinking about their own self, but I always experienced that the more you give them the feeling that you understand their needs, the more they will give it back to you x100.

2 - GETTING IN TOUCH WITH A PLATFORM

Once you find an agreement with an artist, step two comes in very fast. So if you feel good and confortable, earlier on the line, to get your hands into Bandcamp by creating a “label” account and check the possibilities you have with this platform, and what it will take you to release something there (music file formats wise, promotionnal wise, but also little things such as artwork, banners, and maybe the name of the project itself).
It’s actually simplier and easier than anything I could write to sum it up. it is specifically made to answer the needs of small projects, amateur artists, confirmed indie labels, famous niche artists, anybody but the major actually.
At this point, your main thing to check is to agree with the artist and the children (and their parents) on how you will release the result: for “free”, for a “specific price”, or as “name your price”. And as much as there could be money involved: where does it go in the end, and how.

3 - GETTING THE RESULT RELEASED AND PROMOTED
Now this could be both exciting and boring at the same time. ah!
it could be great to see the community of Edgeryders gather around such a creative project resulting from an open village presence in a local community. Wich could lead to a good self promotion of it, and possibly some coverage in specific medias linked to music, and/or communities, etc.
So that means: newsletters, videos, photos, fb/ig/tw posts, ER platform posts, interviews, and everything that the documentation (filming, recording, shooting) of the project while it’s happening could give you, of any kind of formats imaginable.

SIDE NOTES:

I believe it could possibly have an impact in the future of Open Village projects: it could lead more creative minds to get involved, it could lead to festivals that would see music, tech and workshops being programmed in the same location at the time, bringing people of many really different profiles to interact with each others.
And as culture is one of the more meaningful and fragile common that exists in communities, and with Edgeryders producing ideas and projects around many other commons, it could lead to build something like “Open-Culture” or “Open-Art” topic(s), here to be discussed just as Open-Care is for instance. ping @alberto @nadia

So that’s the best you could try to do for a first project.
But don’t mind it if you just want to start a little smaller, by simply inviting an artist to join the workshop for a time being, or give him the freedom to handle step 2 and 3 on hiw own… I don’t know, it’s just how you feel it.

I’ll be there with my former experience in that business, and a couple of contacts that I still have, if you need any kind of advices or introduction emails, etc. So hit me whenever you need! :slight_smile:

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Wait… @gregoiremarty, maybe you are the one most qualified for getting in touch with the artist. Maybe this would be a way to help @HadeerGhareeb? Hadeer, would you rather do it yourself?

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yes I might be.
But maybe this project doesn’t need me that much involved :slight_smile:

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There is a Moroccan artist having his atelier in an informal settlement close to the Sunday market in Essaouira. We met him there in the early days, and he was interested in doing workshops with the kids with us.

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