AND MEDIA IN
WESTERN SAHARA
WHAT WE DO
We support our partners through capacity building and international awareness-raising so that Sahrawi self-determination is not just a political goal but also a long-term nation-building project. For this reason, we work on projects that are initiated and run by Sahrawis themselves and that need outside support due to challenges posed by conditions in the refugee camps and in the occupied Western Sahara.
Through support for the Sahrawi film school, as well as through workshops and film grants, we are contributing to the creation of the first generation of Sahrawi filmmakers who have given birth to Sahrawi cinematography, a brand new art for Western Sahara.
While our main activities center around culture and the arts, our work also delves into media, law and advocacy in order to facilitate cross collaborations and contribute to the strengthening of the movement as a whole.
We prioritize work with women, youth and children, who face particular challenges as refugees and as occupied people.
Our purpose is as bold as it is urgent: to create conditions that will end the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
Human Rights
In collaboration with Sahrawi human rights defenders and international organisations, we document and report on the grave human rights and humanitarian crisis inside the Morocco-occupied Western Sahara. Due to Morocco’s ban on international human rights monitors, and to the UN peacekeeping mission’s lack of a human rights mandate for Western Sahara, this work is critical to ensuring that the world knows about gross human rights abuses committed by Morocco against Sahrawi activists and human rights defenders, including citizen journalists.
Media
Our project Watching Western Sahara supports the efforts of at-risk Sahrawi citizen journalists to report on the widespread, systematic human rights violations and other abuses committed by Morocco in Western Sahara, including the plunder of the territory’s natural resources. Sahrawi journalists, all working clandestinely, are one of the only sources of information from the ground due to Morocco’s near total ban on international media. Our support includes training for media activists, as well as curating and contextualising videos filmed by citizen journalists and eyewitnesses and to make these videos available to international monitors and media through an online platform.
Cultural Roots
Sahrawis under Moroccan occupation and in exile struggle daily to keep their cultural roots alive and transmit Sahrawi traditions through the generations. Our work centres on supporting efforts by Sahrawi cultural practitioners to preserve and protect their language, music, dance, art, literature, archeological patrimony and oral traditions and to develop ways to use new technologies, film and media in these efforts. Connecting Sahrawi youth with elders to promote intergenerational exchanges is our overarching goal. Our team has supported FiSahara and the EFA Abidin Kaid Saleh Audiovisual School since their founding.
ABOUT US
Our work focuses on supporting Sahrawi-led cultural, media and human rights projects in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, in the Morocco-occupied Western Sahara and in the diaspora with the ultimate goal of strengthening the struggle for justice, peace, human rights and self-determination of the Sahrawi people.
We are guided by the Sahrawis' conviction that the defense, preservation and transmission of Sahrawi culture are essential to their very survival as a people, as well as the most effective weapon against tanks, police batons and landmines used by the Moroccan régime against them. We believe that culture is a powerful awareness-raising tool that has the potential of reaching beyond the political and diplomatic channels to connect globally with civil society, media and key decision-makers.
To achieve our mission and vision, we support Sahrawi projects that preserve and protect the vibrant culture of Western Sahara, including the transmission of oral history, as well as media and human rights projects that shed light on the forgotten conflict in Western Sahara and bring international awareness on the human rights violations taking place in the occupied territory and on the grave humanitarian crisis faced by Sahrawi refugees.
PROJECTS
Click to view our extensive listing of films on Western Sahara
NomadsHRC has put together and organized a comprehensive, searchable catalogue of Western Sahara-themed films and videos including, whenever possible, contact information. It includes hundreds of films, making this the largest Western Sahara-themed film catalogue in existence.
There is an abundance of films and videos on Western Sahara, most produced in the past twenty years. Some have been professionally made while others are small productions, often by activists. A growing number are made by Sahrawis.
As a whole, this body of work provides a unique audiovisual narrative of the Spanish colonial era in Western Sahara, the Moroccan invasion and the exodus, the war, life in exile and under occupation and the current reality and struggle of the Sahrawi people. These films help raise international awareness about Western Sahara. As part of our work at FiSahara, NomadsHRC organizes thematic film screenings and Q&A’s around the world.
We are constantly updating this catalogue. Please contact us if you know of Western Sahara-themed films that are not included, or if you see an error in our database.
SAHARA FILM CATALOGUE
Click to view our extensive listing of films on Western Sahara
Most have been produced in the past twenty years. Some films have been professionally made while others are small productions, often by activists. A growing number have been made by Sahrawis.
Resilience in ResistanceThe Struggle of Sahrawi Women Under Moroccan Occupation
This report aims to document the widespread abuses faced by Sahrawi women and the consequences it has for female participation, calling on the international community to take immediate steps to protect their rights and support their legitimate struggle for freedom, justice, and dignity, and to hold Morocco accountable for violating multiple human rights conventions and agreements that it has signed and ratified.
Resilencia en la ResistenciaLa lucha de las mujeres saharauis bajo ocupación marroquí
Este informe tiene como objetivo documentar los abusos generalizados a los que se enfrentan las mujeres saharauis y sus consecuencias en su participación en los espacios públicos, e insta a la comunidad internacional a tomar medidas inmediatas para proteger sus derechos y apoyar su lucha legítima por la libertad, la justicia y la dignidad, así como responsabilizar a Marruecos por violar múltiples convenios y acuerdos de derechos humanos que ha firmado y ratificado.