Morocco’s Amazigh community is mourning Nouzha Benattabou, an educator and longtime Amazigh activist remembered for her work in Tamazight teaching, oral heritage, and cultural transmission.
Le Monde Amazigh reported that Benattabou worked as a trainer in Amazigh language and didactics at the regional education and training center in Meknes. The tribute described her as one of the figures who devoted her academic and educational path to forming teachers and strengthening the place of Amazigh in Morocco’s school system.
Her work was also connected to the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture through training, cooperation and cultural activities. The same report said she received recognition within the National Amazigh Culture Prize in the education category and was honored by the institute in 2008.
Beyond formal education, Benattabou was remembered as a transmitter of oral heritage and a practitioner of tamawayt, the poetic vocal tradition associated with Amazigh-speaking regions of Morocco. That combination of classroom work and oral memory made her career significant at a moment when Tamazight advocates are still pressing for stronger public-school implementation.
A local civic initiative in Khemisset province also referred to her passing while honoring the late Amazigh artist Omar Boutmazought, underscoring how the losses of cultural educators and artists are being felt together in the Zemmour region.