Rabat – The Moroccan ministry of culture launched on December 12 the “Music in hospital” project at the Ibn Sina University Hospital in Rabat (CHIS), aiming to help patients and their families to overcome dark times through art and music.
As part of the project, the Abderrahmane Fennich Foundation and Morocco’s Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication opened a room within the CHIS dedicated to music to stimulate joy and optimism among the patients.
The Minister of Culture Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, stressed the importance of music, theater, and art among patients, calling for more similar initiatives to be launched in all hospitals across the country.
“Moroccan childhood, hope for the future, deserves a lot of attention,” he stressed.
The inauguration ceremony, organized by the ministry in partnership with CHIS, was marked by the presence of the Moroccan Jewish senior adviser to King Mohammed VI André Azoulay, who noted that hospitals are often associated with fear and pain and that such initiatives will contribute to change the persisting stereotypes about hospital environments.
The president of the Abderrahmane Fennich Foundation, Naila Fennich, recalled that initiatives to introduce art and music into hospitals is not new.
“This is an idea of Abderrahmane Fennich, artist and doctor, whose project had unfortunately not succeeded in the sixties,” she explained, expressing her aspiration to generalize arts in all national hospitals given the importance of music therapy for patients.
Mohamed Lamrani, the administrative director of the children’s hospital at CHIS, also highlighted the therapeutic effects of music in relieving stress and loosening the feeling of pessimism for patients and families.
Several Moroccan representatives from art and sport fields attended the opening ceremony where singers Latifa Raafat and Bachir Abdou performed the song “Naghma Wa Bassma.”
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