The local council in the city of Akhtarin, northern Aleppo, has announced the renovation of the meeting hall and auditorium of the Arab Local Council in the city, which in a few days will be ready to offer cultural-based services to large segment of Akhatrin’s people.

Khaled Dibo, the head of the local council, told Enab Baladi that the center will be in service soon, as the renovation of the auditorium and the meeting hall is in its final stages, pointing out that the center’s management was allocated to the local council, after it was run by the city’s military council.

According to Dibo, the center is a forum that joins all the committees and intellectual, scientific and educative projects’ owners together, with the capacity to accommodate about 210 people.

It is decided to provide the center with a public library, a reading hall and administrative offices, in addition to a educative and entertainment theater for the city’s children, with a financial support of the Turkish province of Kilis. About this, Dibo said that the Cultural Directorate at Kilis has promised to pay all the costs, adding, “in case they did not pay for building the library, the reading hall and the stage, the council will seek build them itself.”

Civil organizations in northern Aleppo adopted the renovation of the Arab Cultural Center’s project in Akhtarin; the process’ cost is estimated with about 20 thousand dollars, including the renovation of doors, windows, curtains and the auditorium’s seats, according to the head of the Local Council Khaled Dibo.

In a short period, Dibo said that any civil organization, council of public entity can make use of the Arab Cultural Center’s services, through the support of the cultural tendency in Northern Syria with intellectual workshops, seminars and conferences.

 

The Cultural Center’s Foundation

The Arab Cultural Center in Akhtarin was built about 15 years ago; it went out of service during the past years of the war.

The Center is located in the eastern neighborhood of Akhtarin; it consists of three floors. The basement has three halls, while the first floor contains the office of the center’s head, tow reading rooms and a public library, with 1113 books, since the establishment. The last floor includes popular culture halls and a stage that has the capacity to accommodate 330 people.

The local councils in Northern Syria seek to activate the cultural and civil sector through projects and events that basically aim to offer services to civilians, especially with the spread of the militarization phenomenon in the past few years and the absence of official civil entities.

The “Free Army” factions controlled the city of Aktarin, northern rural Aleppo, within the Turkey-backed “Euphrates Shield” operation that started in August 2016 against the “Islamic State” (ISIS).

Turkey is seeking to run northern Syria and to control the service sector through launching economic projects, the construction of hospitals, schools, bakeries, stadiums and other facilities. Lately, it sought to issue identity cards for the people in al-Baba and Mare, as to face the identity documents’ dilemma pressuring internally displaced people in the area.