Do you know about Meel al-Thahab center?

On Tuesday (26th of January), we (Areej, Najla and Ibrahim) were warmly welcomed by Ms. Fatima Al-Baidhani at Meel Al-Thahab. We introduced ourselves to her and gave a brief description about Kuni wa Kun, its message and goals.

Afterward, she told us about her institute (which is considered a NGO); it was established in 2007 by a group of people who wanted to maintain the verbal inheritance of our culture from vanishing. The name “Mayl Al-Thahab” was stimulated from one of the old folkloric stories. Mayl also means the eye Kohl, and Thahab is gold, and the most unique thing about a human is the eyes or the pretty eyes with Kohl. The institute’s main goal is to build a database for all our verbal inheritance (stories, songs myths, etc…). They are collected from people in different areas around the country (recorded, written or video-taped) and then saved.

Ms. Fatima emphasized that the new generation’s identity is deteriorating because they are losing their verbal inheritance and are negatively affected by Western ideologies and behaviors. She also noted that this institute might be the door for our country to develop and prove its unique identity. When we asked her about the reason of her interest in this verbal inheritance, she replied that she had a passion since she was a little child in listening to old folkloric stories and songs.

She ended by telling us that their website will soon be launched , and that she’s expecting another visit from us to discuss how we can use such folkloric heritage in our initiative.