The Yemeni Ambassador to UNESCO, Mohammed Jumeh, will deliver a lecture on Friday, May 22, in Madrid entitled “From UNESCO World Heritage to Social Resilience: Cultural Preservation in Yemen.” He will address the role of heritage as a tool for social resilience, collective memory, and peacebuilding, alongside the Spanish-Syrian archaeologist Isber Sabrine. The session is part of the program “Yemen: Journey to the Gates of Arabia.”
The event will take place on May 22, 2026, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of Casa Árabe (Calle Alcalá, 62) in Madrid. Admission is free until the auditorium reaches capacity. The event will be presented in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish.
The session will begin with a tour of Yemen’s most important heritage sites, including those recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, as well as various elements of intangible cultural heritage. This will be followed by a brief assessment of the current state of the cultural and heritage sector in Yemen, highlighting the importance of strengthening cultural identity among future generations and underscoring the role of culture as a bridge for dialogue, resilience, and social cohesion in times of conflict.
The second part of the presentation will explore Heritage for Peace’s experience in Yemen in recent years, focusing on support for local communities, heritage professionals, and cultural institutions affected by the armed conflict. Initiatives related to heritage documentation, local capacity building, digital technologies, and cooperation between local and international actors will be addressed.
The presentation will also reflect on the challenges of working in a context marked by war, humanitarian crisis, and institutional fragility, where cultural heritage faces destruction, looting, and rapid deterioration. Finally, the role of heritage as a tool for social resilience, collective memory, and peacebuilding will be analyzed.
Mohammed Jumeh is the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Yemen to UNESCO. A Yemeni poet, he has published three poetry collections, in addition to numerous other poems published and translated. Before his diplomatic career, he worked as a journalist and columnist for various Arab and Yemeni newspapers. He holds a PhD in Literary Translation from the University of Wales.
Isber Sabrine is a Syrian-Spanish archaeologist and researcher at the Milá y Fontanals Institution for Humanities Research (IMF-CSIC). He is also the founder and president of Heritage for Peace, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting endangered cultural sites, promoting local and international cooperation, and supporting heritage recovery in post-conflict contexts. Sabrine holds a PhD in Heritage Management and has worked on numerous projects dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage in the Middle East. Their work focuses on community-based approaches to cultural preservation and the role of heritage in reconstruction and reconciliation processes.
