Last month Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni led a design workshop for a music school in southern Morocco. Located in the oasis of M'hamid El Ghizlane, the Joudour Sahara music school will focus on empowering the 2,000 local children and youth through music education programming in a safe and welcoming space. Its main objectives are to transmit and preserve traditional music heritage, offer training in music-related disciplines such as recording and videography, and to spread environmental awareness in the region.

In addition to classroom instruction, the school will offer a visiting artist exchange, performance spaces for local and travelling acts, an instrument-making and repair workshop, and accommodaions for tourists who are interested in supporting and visiting the school.

The project is led by local NGO Zaila and supported by two other NGOs: Playing for Change and the Sahara-Roots Foundation. Chaouni, who is volunteering for the project, is tasked with developing the project design as well as overseeing the construction process. The design workshop she led involved mapping out the variety of singing styles in the oasis, meeting and recording the performers, and collaborative design work. Three undergraduate Daniels students, Ashita Parekh, Sarah Gaines and Mengyi Zhang, contributed to the project by creating the study model used in the workshop.

Last month, Chaouni presented the project at the Visa for Music Festival in Rabat, Africa's largest music professionals event. She presented again during a session at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.