Romooz and Jedaria are two prominent organisations that have won the Creative Sessions' arts grant from the British Council to develop and deliver cultural activities that focus on and bring about social acceptance among youth in Yemen.
The two foundations aim to connect young creative artists with one another and with the wider world through cultural initiatives. Jedaria has launched three distinctive activities, through the Yemeni folk tale activity, they revived the old folk tale stories and myth. In this, event. two professionals had narrated stories in the manner of storytelling. Hiyam Saleh one of the participants said “A wonderful event that brought us back to an old history that I witnessed and lived in my dreams, through the stories of my father, mother and grandmother. I liked it very much, and I hope that there will be other similar activities.”
In this event, five experienced Youtubers shared their experience in developing social media content that respond to challenges of local context. They talked about the difficulties they faced and the successes and the failures. The programme also networked virtually with Yemeni Youtubers in the diaspora and brought in their knowledge and connected them with the local experiences to enrich the activity and bring in the international context. You can visit their website to read more about their activities.
Romooz has recently launched a call for the Photographer Artist mentorship, which is a separate activity under Creative Sessions. During the months of April and May, an aspiring photographer will endure a mentorship and training by Ibi Ibrahim. The mentorship ends with a presentation of the artist’s work held in Sana’a.
Additionally, Romooz has launched the first call of the photo-walks as part of their mobile based program Phone Art Yemen (Check their Instagram page @phoneart.yemen), the walks aim to bring creatives together and promote work through the social media platforms. Towards the end of the two months, a presentation of the photo-walks held will take place. Stay updated to Romooz’ activities by following their Instagram page (@romoozfoundation).