Hadramout for Culture: Literary Initiatives Outside the War Framework

Hadramout Foundation for Culture, established in 2021 in Yemen, is tasked with promoting culture through a comprehensive concept that is based on it being an integrated system of knowledge, heritage, literature, arts, and ethics, within a human framework that preserves the values that creativity establishes in its various fields.

Since its establishment, the non-profit organization has focused on three main departments to support Yemeni culture: the literature department, which includes poetry, prose, and criticism; the music department, which deals with composition, arrangement, playing, and singing; and the theater department, which focuses on composition, directing, and acting.

The Foundation has also opened up to additional projects aimed at preserving the intangible cultural heritage in Yemen, in addition to special projects to stimulate the cultural scene, especially in light of the absence of official cultural institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture, and the stagnation of cultural activity as a result of the repercussions of the war and the resulting destruction and burning of cultural institutions and facilities in the country.

In this context, the Foundation’s founders were keen on the mission of rooting and renewing heritage, enhancing communication between generations, and activating local cultural movement, through a variety of cultural activities that the Foundation organized periodically. The most prominent of these activities was “Symphony”; a project that aims to present Yemeni heritage music in a modern and orchestral style in different countries around the world, which enhances cultural and artistic exchange between peoples, and provides an opportunity for Yemeni artists to appear on international stages. This project has so far succeeded in reaching Doha, Riyadh and Paris, among other capitals.

“Feather and Pen” was also a periodic activity sponsored by the Foundation, focusing on emphasizing the mutual relationship between poetry and visual arts. The annual activity brings together poets and visual artists from all Yemeni governorates to exchange experiences and produce joint poetic and visual works to explore the relationship between the word and the stroke of the brush.

In order to preserve the heritage of local theatre, the Foundation also launched a school and university festival, considering that Hadhramaut has known school theatre since the 1930s. The project aims to qualify a large number of theatre professionals in the governorate, especially in the fields of writing, directing and acting, through script writing and theatrical performance workshops, in addition to theatrical performances.

Abdul Qader Shamakh, the media official of the foundation, confirmed in his interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that these activities “aim to enhance the Yemeni cultural identity through activities directed at the interior, while the foundation also seeks to present a different cultural image of Yemen, far from the stereotypical images associated with the war, through the “Yemen Paths” project, which aims to create partnerships with international entities to bring opportunities and projects to Yemeni cultural activists and artists, in addition to training programs in managing cultural and artistic projects.”

New Arab