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Joudour Sahara turns 10 in 2026!
Discover our achievements over the last decade and where we plan on going in the next decade
Founded in 2016, Joudour Sahara began activities in the centre of M’hamid El Ghizlane in southeastern Morocco. We’ve engaged 350 students and more than 400 musicians across the Southern Draa Valley region, while reaching more than 6,000 through our community initiatives
Our music education and traditional music and dance activities have included more than 225 youth from more than 17 villages. There are no such activities offered elsewhere in southeastern Morocco, and due to the extraordinary efforts of our team, we are able to realize positive change in M’hamid El Ghizlane and beyond
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Watch how music students and teachers from Joudour Sahara came together with Playing For Change musicians Roberto Luti and Luke Winslow-King to cover one of Luke’s classic songs
This project spans back to 2021 and sends a message of unity while also celebrating diversity
The 4th edition of Zamane was a huge success with more than 225 youth and musician performers!
Watch this recap of the most recent edition of our Zamane Festival and see how some of our traditional music and dance students have graduated to performing with their teachers and one of Morocco’s biggest Gnawan stars
Watch this original song by Joudour Sahara students and recorded with Playing For Change Band guitarist Roberto Luti at Studio Hiba in Casablanca. This recording followed a week-long music residency with Roberto and our students and teachers in M’hamid El Ghizlane.
Check out these music selections recorded and produced with support from Joudour Sahara
Produced by Playing For Change Foundation, African Strings is a compilation album of bands across the PFCF ecosystem, showcasing traditional and modern stringed instruments unique to the continent
“Boba Bodarbala” was recorded at Joudour Sahara and features local Gnawan group Gnawa Ait Faraji, teachers of traditional Ganga music at Joudour Sahara
“Anizdioumine” was recorded at Joudour Sahar by the youth band Assouf N’Dawana, Malian refugees in Mauritania who came to Joudour Sahara to participate at the Zamane Festival in 2024
Joudour Sahara has won the 2021 Holcim Foundation Global Bronze Prize for Sustainable Construction for the design of the Joudour Sahara Cultural Center by partner Aziza Chaouni Projects and support from Sahara Roots Foundation.
Joudour Sahara co-founder Aziza Chaouni and her architectural firm Aziza Chaouni Projects were awarded the Holcim Foundation Global Bronze Prize for Sustainable Construction and an Acknowledgement Prize for Middle East and Africa region. The Holcim Foundation Global Awards are the most prestigious international prizes for sustainable construction internationally.
Joudour Sahara team-members Aziza Chaouni, Dana Salama, Wanda Hebly, and Thomas Duncan accepted these prizes at the Holcim Foundation awards ceremony in Venice, Italy
Watch this video detailing the importance of our environmental work at the edge of the Sahara Desert
Support for this construction has been provided by Sahara Roots Foundation (NL).
The most vital of resources, water has become among the most scarce resources available in the Southern Draa Valley. Unsustainable use of wells, water-inefficient crops like watermelon, and rapid soil salinization locally aggregate to form what can only be characterized as a water crisis
For 10 years now, Sahara Roots Foundation has incorporated the Groasis Waterboxx water management system, a planting tool that maximizes water and has proven to increase the survival rate of trees and plants from 20% to more than 80%. We have planted hundreds locally in just the last few years
Aziza Chaouni Projects has designed inspired facility solutions to lead a regional fight against climate change while also promoting the practice and preservation of music
Depicted here are the renderings for a multi-purpose water reservoir, combining vernacular techniques, innovative architecture, and efficient use of space in the above ground chamber, a cool space to gather and create during the hot summer season
Construction of the water reservoir is currently underway
On our pilot farm, we have designed and have been testing a permaculture-based wadi system to reëstablish the three tiers needed for a thriving oasis: ground vegetation; fruit trees; canopy level palm trees. Drought and poor water management have devastated the bottom two tiers over the last several decades
With this devastation, agriculture is no longer the economic driver it was, leading to a massive rural-to-urban migration. This migration is taking local and traditional knowledge out of the region and leading to the disappearance of traditional music and culture
