“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 suicide bombers who killed 33 people in 2003.
Based in a white building next to a streetcar line 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 cofounded the center with artist Mahi Binebine.
Photo: AFP
Ayouch’s connection with the district began with his film Horses of God, which looked at how young people in the neighborhood were becoming radicalized.
When he organized a screening of the film in Sidi Moumen, Ayouch said he realized something: “Even in an area without rights, there is the right to hope.”
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 Conservatoire de Casablanca,” Yacine said.
Students’ families pay for the lessons, but those on limited means receive subsidized 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,” center assistant manager Soumia Errahmani said.
However, 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 hijab, said the project had taught her that “if you want, you can.”
She said 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,” she said.
In Morocco’s conservative society, “the relationship with art in general, and with dance in particular, is very difficult,” she said.
However, 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.”
Performances and lessons at the center take breaks around Muslim prayer times.
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 last year, he opened a similar center in the Bni Makada District of Tangiers, a neglected, overcrowded neighborhood known for drug dealing and police raids.
Center director Annafs Azzakia Ben Sbih said it 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 Fez.
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.
Her father opposes her hobby, but her mother is supportive.
“She encourages me and tells me: ‘Go ahead,’” Meriem said.
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