CULTURAL NEWS

Heritage Month festivities kick off

ALGIERS- Minister of Culture and Arts Malika Bendouda kicked off Monday, in Algiers, the festivities of the Heritage Month 2021, by visiting Dar El Soltane and Serkadji prison.

The opening ceremony, to which took part Algiers' Governor Youcef Cherfa, Director General of the Penitentiary and Reintegration Administration Essaid Zerb, as well as officials of cultural bodies and economic operators, was marked by a visit to Algiers citadel, dating back to the Ottoman era. The delegation enquired about the progress of the restoration works of this building.

The delegation also visited the prison of Serkadji, built in 1856 by the French colonists on the site of an old Turkish fortification in the upper Casbah of Algiers, and which will soon become a museum devoted to the national Memory.

This year's Heritage Month will have an economic dimension as it is part of the new strategy of the sector based on "the investment in the sector and its opening up to the private funds," said Bendouda, adding that the Algerian heritage needs to be protected and exploited.

This exploitation requires promoting domestic tourism, requiring, in turn, "comfort conditions" in the archeological sites by involving the economic operators, she said, adding that the National Office for Protected Cultural Properly Management and Exploitation (OGEBC), coming under her sector, will make sure to provide these conditions.

The Heritage Month, to be held from 18 April to 18 May, is organized under the theme "Economic promotion of the cultural heritage."