Fez — As Morocco hosts the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2025, the Fondation pour la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Culturel de Rabat (Foundation for the Safeguarding of the Cultural Heritage of Rabat) has unveiled a rich and diversified cultural program designed to accompany the continental tournament.
Chaired by Princess Lalla Hasnaa, the initiative aims to amplify the cultural resonance of CAN 2025 while strengthening Rabat’s position as a crossroads of African dialogue and heritage.
According to a statement from the foundation, the program is conceived in direct alignment with the spirit of the tournament, contributing to Morocco’s cultural outreach during a period marked by the arrival of international visitors. The initiative also builds on Rabat’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage city, recognized for its role as a space of encounter, exchange, and openness toward Africa.
Free guided tours of Rabat’s UNESCO sites
From December 27, 2025 to January 18, 2026, the foundation is offering free guided tours every weekend across Rabat’s eight UNESCO-listed heritage sites. The visits are led by young volunteer students trained through UNESCO’s World Heritage Volunteers initiative.
According to the foundation, the goal is to bring heritage closer to the public, improve accessibility, and deepen youth involvement in preservation and transmission efforts. The initiative is particularly aimed at fostering interaction between local residents and international visitors drawn to Rabat during CAN 2025.
An immersive exhibition on Africa’s shared heritage
The program also includes an exhibition titled “Africa: World Heritage — A Journey Through Landscapes, Civilizations, and Dreams.” Designed as an immersive experience, the exhibition combines photography, trilingual interpretation panels in Arabic, French, and English, and interactive digital installations.
Through this scenography, visitors are invited to explore the diversity of Africa’s World Heritage sites, from ancient cities to vast natural landscapes. The exhibition presents Africa as a foundational cradle of humanity, where monuments, trade routes, and historic sites bear witness to centuries of cultural exchange and shared memory.
Football memory meets heritage transmission
Extending beyond exhibitions and tours, the foundation has produced an intergenerational podcast dedicated to the memory of Moroccan football. The recording brings together two young participants from the foundation’s educational programs — “I Discover My Heritage” and “I Draw My Heritage” — with former Moroccan international Redouane Guezzar, a member of the national team that won the 1976 Africa Cup of Nations.
Lasting more than 28 minutes, the podcast blends sporting memory with youth perspectives, using a contemporary digital format to link past achievements with future aspirations. The initiative reflects the foundation’s broader vision of heritage as a living narrative that evolves through dialogue and transmission.
Heritage as a driver of cultural outreach
Through this CAN 2025 cultural program, the foundation reiterates its belief that heritage can enrich major international events and deepen their meaning. Conceived as a space for learning and exchange, Rabat’s heritage becomes a vehicle for inclusion, dialogue, and engagement, reinforcing the capital’s cultural visibility nationally and internationally.
Created by King Mohammed VI, the foundation works to safeguard Rabat’s material, immaterial, and landscape heritage. Since 2012, “Rabat, Modern Capital and Historic City: A Shared Heritage” — encompassing eight major sites — has been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Under Princess Lalla Hasnaa’s leadership, the foundation continues to advance a strategy centered on education, awareness, and collective ownership, positioning heritage as a powerful engine of social, economic, and cultural development.
