The Postwar Reconstruction and Rehabilitation in Yemen project is ran by the Prince Claus Fund and the Daw‘an Mud brick Architecture Foundation in Yemen. The project is restoring, reconstructing and renovating important cultural landmarks that have been affected by conflict in the country.
In this interview, Prince Claus Fund's Ilaria Manzini tells us more about the challenges and rewards of the project and what advice she would give to others looking to apply for a Cultural Protection Fund grant.
Please could you tell us a little bit about your project?
The project ‘Postwar Reconstruction and Rehabilitation in Yemen’ builds on a long-term collaboration between the ‘Cultural Emergency Response’ Programme of the Prince Claus Fund and the Daw‘an Mud brick Architecture Foundation in Yemen. The aim of the project is to rehabilitate four historic and religious landmarks in the Hadramut region. The four sites are mosques, domes and shrines that were targeted and destroyed, partially or completely, by al Qaeda during the conflict in 2015.
In addition to restoring these buildings to their previous beauty and to their use by the local communities, the project also aims at strengthening the capacity of local builders and craftsmen to maintain their built cultural heritage, by training them in the restoration of mud brick buildings. This type of architecture, which requires highly specialized skills and techniques, played a key role historically in developing the unique urban culture of the region.
What have you found the most rewarding about working on your project?
The Prince Claus Fund conceives the safeguard of cultural heritage under threat as a means to help communities around the world reaffirm their sense of identity and human dignity in disrupted contexts. Cultural heritage that is meaningful to a specific community – especially one threatened by natural disasters, conflicts, or marginalised in its context – can be a powerful source of agency and hope for the future. Because of our firm belief in the central role of communities in the safeguarding of what is important to them, the interest shown by members of different local communities towards the project has been of the outmost importance and very rewarding for us. On different occasions the Daw‘an Mud brick Architecture Foundation has been approached by locals, who expressed their enthusiasm for the restoration of these important cultural and religious landmarks and who also pointed us to more buildings destroyed during the conflict, which they hope to see rehabilitated in the near future.
Cultural heritage that is meaningful to a specific community – especially one threatened by natural disasters, conflicts, or marginalised in its context – can be a powerful source of agency and hope for the future.
Have there been any challenges along the way that you could tell us about?
Yemen is a country which, over the past few years, has been experiencing a very harsh conflict, which is still ongoing. While the area where our project is based has enjoyed relative peace and security from 2017 onwards, this is still, in many respects, a wounded territory. The lack of functioning infrastructure, from the banking to the airport systems, poses severe limitations to the quick and efficient implementation of complex, multi-sites projects. The knowledge of the local context by the Daw‘an Mud brick Architecture Foundation – coupled with the Prince Claus Fund’s understanding of the issues faced by Partners who work in conflict or post-conflict zones – has proven invaluable to overcoming most of these challenges.
Do you have any future plans for your project / what do you hope for the project to achieve in the coming years?
Our project has so far focused on a limited number of sites destroyed by attacks during the conflict in Yemen. It has contributed through small, yet very tangible actions to the collective efforts to restore the social, cultural, and economic fabric of the region. We plan to strengthen and broaden this impact by reconstructing and rehabilitating more sites in Hadramut and especially in the capital city of Mukalla, where some civil and cultural buildings damaged during the war have been identified. Once rehabilitated, these buildings could offer a public space to the local community where cultural and educational facilities could be hosted. The intended goal is to contribute to a process of recovery by healing some of the scars that the conflict has left in the urban landscape of the city.
Our project has so far focused on a limited number of sites destroyed by attacks during the conflict in Yemen. It has contributed through small, yet very tangible actions to the collective efforts to restore the social, cultural, and economic fabric of the region.
What advice would you give to someone looking to apply for funding?
Our advice when approaching a project for the safeguard or rehabilitation of cultural heritage would be to first and foremost focus on the needs expressed by local communities and to involve them at the earliest opportunity, or when possible have them take the lead, ideally from the application phase itself. While adding value to the process, this approach is also likely to increase the efficiency of the project and especially its sustainability in the longer run. Based on both the Prince Claus Fund’s and the Daw‘an Mud brick Architecture Foundation’s long experience working in conflict or post-conflict situations, we deem it crucial to be realistic on both the outputs and outcomes that can be expected from a project which will face additional challenges, ranging from poor or non-existing infrastructure, to safety issues, to very fragile socio-economic conditions.
Our advice when approaching a project for the safeguard or rehabilitation of cultural heritage would be to first and foremost focus on the needs expressed by local communities and to involve them at the earliest opportunity, or when possible have them take the lead, ideally from the application phase itself.
