Joudour Sahara Culture Center: an “ECO” Culture Center in M’hamid Al Ghizlane
“Joudour Sahara” will focus on empowering youth with a music and arts education programming in a safe and welcoming space. In addition to classroom instruction, the school will offer a visiting artist exchange, indoor and outdoor performance spaces for local and travelling acts, an on-site workshop for musical instrument creation and repair, and accommodations for those who are interested in supporting the school while on holiday. The project is music-centric but has a heavy environmental awareness and conservation component, because it is a learning institution, and creating awareness about the environment issues is also very important.

Sahara-Roots Foundation is one of the co-founders of the Joudour Sahara Culture Center. Next to planting trees and educational activities, we are funding the construction of the buildings on the Joudour Sahara Culture Center site.
2021: we were able to start construction of the first 3 buildings after having received donations made by our angel Sponsor: Stichting de Hoorn.
2024: we had the inauguration of the 1st three buildings of Joudour Sahara Culture Center
1: Water reservoir, 2: Amphitheater, 3: Eco-toilet block
2025: we are continuing with the building of a Riad with the support of donations provided by our Angel Sponsor

December 2024: “Seeds of Gratitude & Friendship”
We were able to experience the profound feeling of gratitude during the 3rd Zamane Festival this year. Perseverance,trust, friendship and positive energy have allowed us to experience the opening of the first two phases of the buildings constructed on the Joudour Sahara grounds, as well as the start of the beautiful botanical gardens with paths set out to the various locations on site. We experienced the first concert to be given in the amphitheatre by Omara “Bombino” Moctar, a Tuareg singer-songwriter, Emmy nominated and guitarist from Niger and his band. Grateful that such a renowned band came all the way to the small town of M’hamid! Please read ……

April 2024: A big thank you to our “Angel Sponsor” 
The Joudour Sahara construction partner Mr. Said, Mr Lahsan Abid of CERKAS & Halim Sbaï of Joudour Sahara met us in M’hamid to discuss the last steps of the building process of this innovative project. These eco-designed buildings are by Aziza of Aziza Chaouni Projects, A big thank you to our “Angel Sponsor” from the Netherlands, for her patience and her trust in us! With her support the Joudour Sahara Culture Centre is now well underway! Please read ……

December 2023: Tree-planting, music & construction
During the last year we were able to continue with all our projects in Morocco such as tree-planting and the construction of our water reservoir, amphitheater and eco toilet block. We still have a way to go before all the buildings of the Joudour Sahara Culture Center are built so our botanical gardens have been put on hold until building is finished. But during our last trip to M’hamid in DEC 23 we were able to see that things are now well underway. Please read ……

November 2021: Holcim Awards 2021!
During the bi-annual Holcim Awards ceremony for Sustainable Construction at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy, last weekend, the Bronze Global 2021 award & the Acknowledgement 2020 award for Middle East & Africa, was presented to our partner Aziza Chaouni architects and the other members of the Joudour Sahara project team: Thomas Duncan, Dana Salama, Halim Sbai and Wanda Hebly.  Please read ……

JOUDOUR SAHARA’S WATER RESERVOIR!
September 2021 marked the beginning of the construction of the innovative water reservoir designed by Aziza Chaouni Projects (www.azizachaouniprojects.com) and this is the first building of a much larger sustainable project:  Joudour Sahara which in the future will consist of botanical gardens, a music school supported by Playing For Change Foundation (www.playingforchange.org) an auditorium, a visitor’s center and an eco-lodge (www.joudoursahara.org ). The water reservoir will be a state-of-the-art facility comprising of a stone vault to hold water underground, and an above ground area covered by a clay roof, the reservoir utilizes natural elements to create a cool space to gather during the hot summer months.  Please read ……

Read about our involvement with this project

Other Partners involved:
Halim Sbai: has been pioneering environmental and cultural projects since 2005 and created the Taragalte Festival in 2009. Through music, art, workshops, exhibitions, and conferences, the festival promotes and provides a platform for the sustainable development of the region.
CERKAS: Mohamed Boussalh, Director of CERKAS (Center for the Conservation and Rehabilitation of the Architectural Heritage of the Atlas and sub-Atlas zones).
Playing for Change Foundation: with Thomas Duncan
Their mission of PFC is to create positive change through music and arts education. Their guiding principles are:
a. using music to transform lives and communities;
b. connecting people and communities (locally and globally);
c. economic empowerment (use of local materials and labour, teachers, earned income through instrument creation, performances, administration of the school);
d. local leadership.
Aziza Chaouni Projects: Aziza’s Ghaouni’s expertise in the integration of architecture, landscape and green technologies in arid climates. She will be responsible for the construction and layout of the school site and structures.

The “Green Gateway to the Sahara” opens it’s gates to “Joudour Sahara”!
The Earth Day Activities on the 23rd of April 2016 were dedicated to connecting with the local people of the village Zaouia close to M’hamid Al Ghizlane. A visit was made to a site close to the village Zaouia on which we will start planting trees during the Taragalte Festival in October 2016. During this visit, we had the opportunity to speak with the village elders of Zaouia as we wanted to explain this new project, which will be based on the knowledge of “Permaculture” to them, and to see if they still had knowledge on how planting was done before the arrival of modern techniques such as chemical fertilizers.

The “Green Gateway to the Sahara” will open it’s gates to “Joudour Sahara” bringing children and visitors through the “gardens” to the music school. Together with all our Joudour Sahara Partners we would like to help bring back ancient knowledge on how to farm in the oasis as it was done before, without the use of chemical fertilizers. We want to combine the ancient and modern techniques, such as the use of the Waterboxx. With this new project we want to create awareness on the importance of fighting desertification for the local people living on the frontier of the huge Sahara desert. It is important to save the agricultural land and the cultural heritage of this environment. The Green Gateway to the Sahara will serve as a model to show the positive effects of adopting a combination of a Permaculture system, innovative agricultural techniques, and strategically planting trees. With this model we want to show others with frontier plots of land, how to adopt similar systems thus creating a “Grassroots” approach.

A Permaculture System for agriculture.
We have been researching this system for the past 6 months together with our Dutch Permaculture partner Roos Beute. It is a sustainable approach to farming and planting that rules out the use of chemical fertilizers and mechanical systems that do more harm than good. This system has been proven to rehabilitate formerly arable land for example in Jordan.

Joudour Sahara Overview 2022 from Joudour Sahara on Vimeo.