My name is Hanin Ahmed. I am the founder of the Old Omdurman Emergency Response Room in Sudan, as well as a global advocate for community-based responses and the protection of women and girls in Sudan.
I’m writing to share my new policy brief, which shows how women-led organizations, mutual aid groups, and Emergency Response Rooms have become the real protection system for Sudanese women and girls, from South Darfur to Khartoum to Cairo, and how funding cuts are now dismantling it.
I chose to focus on this issue because I have lived it. I watched women in my own community keep kitchens, clinics, and safe spaces for civilians running throughout the war with almost nothing. Then I watched people lose these support services overnight when what little humanitarian funding there was stopped.
I hope this policy brief will show donors that cutting this funding is not simply a budget decision but rather a life-or-death choice. I hope it will push them to fund women-led and community-led responders directly, flexibly, and for the long term, before the lifelines these women built are irrevocably lost. Thank you for reading.
Hanin Ahmed, Old Omdurman Emergency Response Room
A note from the editor:
Hanin’s policy brief, “From Frontlines to Frameworks: How Women-Led Organizations, Mutual Aid Groups, and Emergency Response Rooms Protect Women and Girls in Sudan,” is the first in a new WRC series called Feminist Solutions in Displacement. Each brief in the series will be authored by a WRC partner with lived experience of displacement.