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Southern Women Group
for Peace in the North is a
Community-Based Organization (CBO)
established in the 1990s to respond to
challenges facing displaced women in
Northern Sudan. It is a non-political,
non- governmental and non-profit
organization whose focus is to address
problems facing women in general and
vulnerable groups in particular.
The main vision of
the group is advocacy for peace,
justice, human rights and participation
of women in socio-political life in the
country at large. SWGP mission is to
work for sustainable peace justice and
respect of human rights, targeting
political leadership, grass-roots and
mobilizes international support and
recognition, though advocacy, training
and networking with similar Sudanese
organizations for the attainment of
justice, equity sustainable peace and
just development and human progress.
Beneficiaries are
members of various women groups,
including community-based and
non-government organization with vested
interest in justice, democracy, and
peace in and outside Khartoum.
Before the CPA the
SWGP were funded by NCA, NCC, Endowment
Fund. After CPA is has become difficult
because most funds are allocated to the
South government. The last grant
obtained from RNE was before the CPA.
After the CPA the
SWGP focused on the return of IDPs to
the South by awareness raising of the
importance of being registered in the
South, awareness raising on
administrative division, and for the
upcoming elections. The activities
include workshops in different areas of
Khartoum, funded through members in
South Sudan and by Government of South
Sudan.
In the year 2008,
Southern Women Group for Peace organized
two workshops aimed at creating
awareness and concretization of 152
grassroots women in the displacement
camps at Jebel Aulia and Hai Baraka (Haj
Yousif). The themes of the two workshops
were:
The Group identified
activities that were integrated into a
plan of action for this year 2009, which
included workshops on "Election Laws and
Processes." With elections expected in
2009, the organization plans to expand
its activities of public education in
main towns of South Sudan to empower
women at the grassroots level to
understand their voting rights and
representation. The towns concerned
include Juba, Wau, Malakal, Renk and
Kosti. Instead of focusing only on major
towns, plans are underway to extend
activities of the organization to states
in the South.
The SWGP had offices
in strategic southern cities, and in
capital located in Al Diam – South
Khartoum. Khartoum office consists of 2
rooms, small training/ meeting hall and
kitchen. There is no permanent staff as
everyone is working. This group has
suffered from the successful entry of
its women members into government; many
members are now members of parliament.
In the executive are two accountants,
one of them working at WFP. The contact
persons are the chairperson Mrs.
Veronica Louis Renzi and the deputy
director Mrs. Nora Benjamin.
Training received
from Sudan Council of Churches in
advocacy, financial management, from IRC
in management. Under the Management of
Salmmah several capacity building
trainings were undertaken . |
