The first country workshop of the UfM project “Traditional Building Skills in the South Mediterranean Region” will be organised in Tunisia from 5 to 7 December 2023 in cooperation with the Ministry of Equipment and Housing of Tunisia. 

The UfM project, which is implemented by the UfM in collaboration with UNESCO and with the financial support of the German Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ), aims to identify and promote good practices in raising awareness, preserving and promoting vernacular architecture and traditional building skills as a means to increase cultural embeddedness of time honoured solutions and their climate adaptiveness, as well as to enhance a sustainable local economy and to create valuable and skilled jobs related to traditional materials, traditional techniques and heritage preservation.

The Launching Meeting held in Barcelona on 6 July 2023, set the basis for four follow-up country workshops that will take place in 2023-2024 in Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria. It gathered the most relevant stakeholders and institutions that are currently working in these fields within the region, and it included presentations, lectures and panel discussions. The country workshops will continue to identify and spread models of good practice in this field, those addressing the preservation and continuity of this type of traditional trades and techniques from a more innovative and integrating perspective.

During these meetings, a pilot program will be organized to present hands-on models of training activities in traditional building techniques and its main values, involving local building masters and a new generation of apprentices. This activity can serve as a starting point for a broader training program which allows to achieve the proposed objectives.