University Professor
Nouzha
Benattabou has made of the promotion of Amazigh culture her battleground. She is a university professor and trained in the
Amazigh language and didactics at the Regional Center for Education and
Training in Meknes; and is a member of the National Unit for the Monitoring and
Training in the Amazigh Language. She also oversees several training projects for
the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture, the George Washington Academy and the
International Scientific Institute of the city of Grenoble. And that's not the end story. Nouzha Benattabou
is also a great storyteller in her preferred language but also in Arabic and
French. She is a
professional of the tamawaye, "a sung form of mountain poetry, the Amazigh
equivalent of the" mowal ". Benattabou also works in several cultural
associations for the development and integration of rural women in the
professional world: "I came from the region of Zemmour in the Atlas mountains
and I know well the suffering of women in remote areas from the country. Benattabou always defended the Amazigh identity
as "part of the Moroccan heritage" and her language as "a
language in its own right - not a dialect - with its specificity, its grammatical
rules, and its lexicon. "
A language written in Tifinagh
characters that she finds "easy to learn, write and memorize." Nouzha Benattabou is also a great collector of
ancient Amazigh jewelry.