As part of the celebration of Heritage Month, the Foundation for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage of Rabat, chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, is launching the first edition of the “I draw my heritage” program in Taroudant, in partnership with the Ministry of National Education, Pre-school and Sport, the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication and ICOMOS Morocco.
The launch workshop was held on Tuesday 26 March 2024 in the activity room of the Hassan I High school in Taroudant, for 40 teachers and headmasters from 16 primary schools in the city and surrounding area.
The teachers and headmasters who took part in the training workshop received theoretical and practical training, during which they learned about the representations of cultural heritage in Taroudant and the importance of directing pupils’ research and work towards these symbols, creating an emotional link between these young artists and the subject of their drawings.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, the program took as its theme “The city’s cultural symbols”, inviting the 450 participants to rediscover their cultural heritage and express their vision of it by drawing it and transforming it into postcards.
This fun and creative activity will enable them to learn more about their unique tangible and intangible heritage, while developing their imagination and sense of aesthetics.
In Taroudant, the “I draw my Heritage” program will enable young people to discover the cultural heritage of their town. The Al Haouz earthquake highlighted the need to protect cultural heritage and the importance of preserving it for future generations. It is therefore important to educate and raise awareness of this heritage, both tangible and intangible, in order to encourage all sections of society, particularly young people, to become aware of its importance.
Under the guidance of their teachers, the pupils will discover some thirty symbols of the cultural heritage of their town and the surrounding area. It’s a journey that will bring to light the representations of ancestral heritage in architecture, town planning, people and nature through monuments, houses, doors, customs, jewellery, skills and much more.
Participants in the program, both teachers and students, will be given guided tours of heritage sites and monuments by heritage professionals, giving them a chance to discover in a different way the walls that surround the city and bear witness to important historical periods, as well as the details of the archaeological gates and the narrow streets of the city where the town flourished.
They’ll be curious to learn more about this heritage at home, in the food, ceremonies, customs, clothing and much more.
Each drawing they create will tell a story that reflects the essence of our culture. Each drawing will be accompanied by a message written by the children expressing their vision of Taroudant’s heritage, capturing the impact, details and precious moments in a clear translation of the richness and diversity of our cultural heritage.
The letter written by the pupils, and the drawing produced, will strengthen their emotional bond with their heritage, encouraging them to recognise it and thus to preserve and protect it.
Through artistic creation, our young artists will carry the torch for Taroudant’s cultural heritage, developing a sense of civic responsibility and awareness of the importance of preserving it and passing it on to future generations.
The young artists’ postcards and letters will be collected in a collective book in the style of an epistolary novel. The book will be a living testimony to the creativity of young people and their vision of Taroudant’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It will be a valuable archive for future generations, showing how they perceive, interpret and relate to this heritage.
