Sidi Moumen is preparing to welcome a cultural and artistic centre, which will reconnect the district to the rest of the city. Indeed, the "Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen" centre will officially open its doors in the near future. This ambitious project led by the Ali Zaoua Foundation will be a place for initiation and training in the arts and performing arts professions (music, dance, theatre, cinema, visual arts, etc.), while also being a space for dissemination, where the district's talents will have the possibility to perform in a professional setting. The centre will also be dedicated to learning foreign languages. According to the Ali Zaoua Foundation, the centre has already been hosting workshops organised by Moroccan artists for the benefit of the district's youth since last April. "Even if we have organised some activities within the centre, the official inauguration will only take place next September," assures a member of the Foundation. With a view to opening up and breaking the isolation of the Sidi Moumen district from the rest of the metropolis, the centre will also host, on a regular basis as part of its cultural activities, artists, troupes, and Moroccan and international companies for shows, performances, and screenings for the benefit of the district's inhabitants and Casablancans in general.

For some years now, essentially social centres have opened their doors in the district, attempting to accompany the effervescence of the youth of Sidi Moumen, but this remains insufficient, as the demand is immense, according to the Foundation. In Sidi Moumen, workspaces and performance or exhibition spaces remain extremely rudimentary, offering very limited possibilities to the young talents of the district. Access to culture and the possibility given to young people to deploy their creativity also remain very limited in this district. Yet this is what these generations need above all, in order to "reconnect" to the metropolis and, in general, to a healthy societal environment. To compensate for this lack of cultural spaces, the centre will be made available to the youth of Sidi Moumen to meet their needs and ambitions. A multi-purpose hall will be set up there as an artistic platform meeting professional standards in the field. The idea is to make this place both a quality performance and screening stage, and a rehearsal and creation space offering the district's youth adapted means and tools. Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen will be above all a space for training, sharing, and discovery open to the youth of the district, but also to all Casablancans. It will thus open its doors to all those who wish to benefit from the courses and masterclasses that will be provided there, both in artistic disciplines and in foreign languages. Budding artists and amateur companies in the district will also have the possibility to take advantage of the various rehearsal and workspaces that will be specially set up to welcome them and offer them adequate working conditions. A workspace and consultation area will also be dedicated to district associations, to allow them to carry out their activities optimally and to maintain a link between the district's associative actors and the Ali Zaoua Foundation. In general, access to the centre will be free. Nevertheless, a symbolic contribution will be requested to benefit from courses and activities under the supervision of professionals. Ali Zaoua, first star: Created in February 2009, the Ali Zaoua Foundation was born from an observation, that of a need for reconnection between the inhabitants of the Sidi Moumen district and the rest of the city of Casablanca.

Convinced that this reconnection will pass through a cultural and artistic link, artists Nabil Ayouch and Mahi Binebine created the Ali Zaoua Foundation with the aim of initiating a real project that will take root in Sidi Moumen and will allow, in the long term, the youth of the district to benefit from a space for expression, on the one hand, and to invite Casablancans to reconcile with this part of their city, on the other hand. Let us recall that Sidi Moumen is a district that sadly made headlines in the aftermath of the 16 May 2003 attacks. This is why the Foundation has made it its mission to work for the social development of the youth of this district via the cultural and artistic field.