Act for Culture: NET-MED Youth Funds Morocco and Tunisia NGOs

Act to protect. Act to value. Act to engage. Such were the driving motives for UNESCO’s call for projects last May 2017 to support innovative models of youth civic engagement to protect and promote cultural heritage in Morocco and Tunisia. Four projects by youth organizations, two in Morocco and 2 in Tunisia, are now selected and launched.

The projects are supported by NET-MED Youth as it works towards helping young people use the power of arts and culture to resist, protect and (re)construct their diverse communities and identities and face the social challenges of the region. Needless to say, this will strengthen youth participation in public life for a full realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms. And here we are talking mainly about the cultural rights of each and every individual to engage in conversation and reflection about their own society, about the other and about oneself.

Project 1

Morocco – Atelier de l’Observatoire association will launch a Collective Museum. This will be the result of a work of art collectively made by young people from marginalized neighborhoods in Casablanca. Through the use of art, youth will redefine and rethink about their relationship with their heritage. They will share and promote a collective memory within their community.  

Project 2

Morocco – The association Badira Culture Communication et Développement and the Marocopedia platform will pilot a participatory survey on the cultural heritage of the region of Tata. Documentary filmmakers will be part of the team, too. Many activities with youth are on the list: trainings, filming, awareness campaigns, etc.

Project 3

Tunisia – The association Edifices & Mémoires will create a Collective Heritage Observatory (Observatoire collaboratif du patrimoine) at the initiative of young whistleblowers trained in the identification of endangered cultural heritage in Tunisia. The association will also launch an online platform which provides access to a diversity of documents by young citizens. The platform will showcase unknown heritage sites and will help the public be reconciled with their past.

Project 4

Tunisia – The Museum Lab association will work with young people on an art project using digital and urban art forms to tell the ancient mythological stories of the Uthina site. The project will ally contemporary arts with archeology, imagination with history. Academicians, artists and cultural experts will work together to create a unique scenography to reinterpret this valuable, but underestimated, site.

The call for projects is a continuation of the work of UNESCO’s regional conference Cultural Heritage and Identities: Youth Perspectives in the Arab Region (March 2017).

Congrats to the winners!