Sharon Raich-Garson

Spike Lee is helping lead the charge.

He's now an ambassador for a new program called My Afro Origins, which aims to offer citizenship to people across the diaspora, especially descendants of enslaved Africans looking to trace their lineage back to the region.

And it's already drawing high-profile attention.

This past July, Ciara became one of the first to receive Beninese citizenship.

Just last week, she was back in the country performing at a major voodoo festival in the coastal city of Ouida, once a key hub of the transatlantic slave trade.

It's part of a broader cultural moment Benin is trying to harness.

So what does it actually take to qualify?

Our West and Central Africa bureau chief, Rabi Khoury Boulay, has been looking into the requirements.

Rabi says Ghana's been running a similar program for nearly a decade, and that personal connections are only part of what's shaping these initiatives.

A search for roots doesn't always mean looking back across borders.

Sometimes it means stepping deeper into history, to places where traditions aren't revived, but still lived.

One of those places is Morocco's ancient city of Fez, where leather goods from purses to cushions line the stalls of the chouk.

The leather-making craft dates back nearly a thousand years and is still practiced by hand here at a site known as the Shuara Tannery.

Inside, the work follows a steady rhythm.

Hides are dyed, flipped, washed, and stacked by hand in open stone vessels, using methods passed down through generations.

Local shop owners describe Chihuahua as both a vital industry and a cultural legacy.

One that can't stop regardless of season or circumstance because it supports livelihoods across Fez's old city and supplies leather far beyond it.

The hides processed here go to local markets and export chains, keeping the tradition of hand processing and craftsmanship connected to present day demand.

For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app.

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