The Sahara Project
A pilgrimage to retrace my ancestors' steps.
More than a journey. A pilgrimage.
I am retracing ancestral trade and nomadic routes across the desert, walking in the footsteps of my Amazigh ancestors. For me, the 2,500km walk is at once a physical challenge, a spiritual return, and a reclamation of identity after years of denying my roots in a world marked by racism.
Growing up French-Tunisian, I often hid my Tunisianity, the very ancestry that now gives me strength. This walk is my way of honouring that legacy, reminding North African women that they carry Warrior Queens in their blood.
The Sahara Project is also a political statement. Tunisia still does not recognise Amazigh people in its constitution. This journey is my way of declaring that First Nation identity, culture, and wisdom matter, and must be protected.
"This isn't just an expedition. It's proof that the work works."
My return
I grew up between Tunisia, France, and Algeria. For years, I denied my Tunisian roots as a way to survive racism as a child. In the healing process and in reclaiming my Tunisianity, I realised how Tunisia itself is denying its Amazigh origins through cultural erasure and racism. Now, I return to walk the caravan roads of my ancestors, as a woman, as a Tunisian, as myself; inspired by the women in my mother's lineage and the Warrior Queen, Dihya.
The Sahara Project is the ultimate practice of everything I teach: regulating my nervous system under extreme conditions, trusting my body, and walking in the footsteps of the women who came before me. This project exists because of the inner work. Years of emotional processing led me to reclaim an identity that wasn't named in my family, my Amazigh heritage. That reclamation became the Sahara Project.
A living exploration
Resilience, ancestral knowledge, ecology, and human adaptation.
The Sahara Project is a research and storytelling expedition retracing ancestral trade and nomadic routes across the Saharan desert, a land shared over centuries by Amazigh and Bedouin peoples. For me it is also a return to my own Amazigh lineage. It is part field research, part reconnection, and part inquiry into what modern societies can relearn from the desert's peoples about living, adapting, and belonging.
The question at its centre is simple: how did people sustain resilience, interdependence, and meaning in one of the harshest environments on earth, and what does that teach us now.
What the project creates
The expedition feeds a body of work rather than ending at the journey itself. Its flagship output is a keynote that brings the lessons of the desert to stages, conferences, and organisations: resilience as relationship, not performance.
Alongside it sit a research paper developed with academic partners, and a visual record, intended to include documentary film and photography. Underpinning all of it is a safeguarded archive of recordings, interviews, and documentation gathered along the way.
The route
The 2,500km route follows ancient trade routes. I will be guided by an Amazigh chamelier and guide.
This map is an estimate and will evolve as I sharpen my knowledge of the terrain. The itinerary is being carefully chosen under the expert guidance of Regis Belleville, the most prominent Saharan explorer of our time.
The precise route will remain hidden from the public for safety reasons.
Women and wisdom
In Amazigh culture, women were warriors, leaders, and keepers of wisdom. The culture is matriarchal and passed down from mother to daughter.
Much of this knowledge is disappearing. Erased by colonisation and largely unrecorded by male-dominated anthropology. On the periphery of this pilgrimage, I will begin the long-term work of conserving women's knowledge. Too often dismissed or erased, ensuring these threads of resilience remain alive for future generations.
The desert itself is a living archive of ancient knowledge: healing practices, ecological wisdom, and oral traditions. Much of it has been overlooked or silenced by colonisation, systemic erasure of First Nation cultures, and male-dominated anthropology. In my own upbringing, Amazigh traditions survived disguised within Muslim customs: hidden, ridiculed, or stripped of their origins.
How the project unfolds
Phase one, scoping and relationships. Returning to the region to build trust with community organisations, find and work alongside local guides, and establish how knowledge will be shared, credited, and protected.
Phase two, the documented expedition. Carried out with local guides whose time and camels are engaged at fair rates, producing the keynote, the paper, and the visual record.
Phase three, transmission. Granting communities lasting access to the archive, partnering with local organisations to hold and share it, and supporting the teaching of this knowledge forward.
Rooted in reciprocity
This is custodianship, not extraction. Everyone who shares their knowledge does so with consent and is credited where they wish to be. Rather than removing what I gather, I will keep the recordings and documentation accessible to the communities and their descendants in perpetuity, partnering with local organisations entrusted to hold and share them. Local guides are paid fairly for their expertise.
I will establish a formal benefit-sharing arrangement once a trusted local partner is identified, rather than promising it before it can be honoured. And I meet the desert itself with care, through a low-footprint expedition.
Why it matters now
As the climate crisis deepens, cultures like the Amazigh face erasure through disappearing ecosystems, systemic denial by governments, and the silencing of First Nation identities.
This isn't only cultural loss. It mirrors the wider collapse and population shifts we face globally. By reclaiming identity and ancestral wisdom, we restore belonging and unlock resilience for the future.
As climate change and cultural homogenisation accelerate, this wisdom is at risk of disappearing forever. The Sahara Project is a reclamation of roots, land, and memory. It is both a deeply personal pilgrimage and a collective reminder: our ancestors left us the tools to face crisis with courage, adaptability, and belonging.
Frequently asked questions
Support the Sahara Project
This project is self-funded and community-supported. Every contribution helps bring this journey to life and supports the cultural conservation work that will continue long after the walk is complete.
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hello@soniahouria.com