CASABLANCA: “Teaching young people to dream again” is the vision of a Moroccan cultural center in a rundown Casablanca district, once home to a group of radicals.
Based in a white building next to a tramline and opposite a mosque, the Stars Cultural Center in Sidi Moumen regularly hosts more than 300 young people for classes in music and music theory, classical dance, hip-hop, English and French.
“When we tell young people that violence is not a means to express themselves, we must find them other means,” said filmmaker Nabil Ayouch, who co-founded the center with artist Mahi Binebine.
Ayouch’s connection with the district began with on of his films showed how young people in the neighborhood were becoming radicalized.
That seed of an idea eventually led him to set up the center in the district that was home to 12 suicide bombers, who carried out the May 2003 attacks in Casablanca.
Yacine, 14, is studying piano and music theory and hopes that one day he can become a concert musician and perform with an orchestra.
“The training is much better than at the Casablanca Conservatoire,” he said.
Students’ families pay for the lessons but those on limited means receive subsidised rates.
The center offers free film screenings, hosts foreign artists and gives shows that attract spectators from far and wide.
“Back in 2014, there was nothing — no culture, no cinema,” said the center’s assistant manager, Soumia Errahmani.
But funded by private donations and foreign cultural institutes, the center has shown that “there are also stars and not only terrorists” in the district, she said.
The 24 year old, her hair covered with a headscarf, said the project had taught her that “if you want, you can.”
She herself signed up for a class because she had “always dreamed of playing guitar and percussion.”
She put together a band, Africa Vibes, and stayed. Now she manages student registrations at the center and works to “reassure parents.”
In Morocco’s conservative society, “the relationship with art in general, and with dance in particular, is very difficult,” she said.
But today, “parents come to see the shows, they are proud of their children,” she said. “Mothers, who were worried about seeing their daughters dancing, come to ask for advice, some borrow books.”
Ayouch, who grew up among the tower blocks of the working-class Paris suburb of Sarcelles, said the center aims to break down the “invisible walls” both mental and geographical, which “confine culture to the city center.”
In November, he opened a similar center in the Beni Makada district of Tangiers, an over-crowded neighborhood known for drug dealing and police raids.
Director Annafs Azzakia Ben Sbih told AFP the center aimed to “show that there are also young talents” and change the way people see a neighborhood many would previously have avoided.
Further centers are planned in disadvantaged districts of Marrakesh and Fes.
Ayouch said the idea is to create “a network with similar programs and shared programs, with passionate teachers who are trained and rewarded, who can make openings for young people to jump into,” Ayouch said.
It was through the center that Meriem, 21, became a rapper. She is working on a new record, “What belongs to girls,” and dreams of going on tour.
A creative outlet for Casablanca’s youth
A creative outlet for Casablanca’s youth
