The backbone of relief efforts has been youth-driven and neighbourhood-based mutual aid groups known as emergency response rooms – which were set up at the outset of the war – as well as other local community initiatives.
With support from local and diaspora networks, as well as international donors, community responders have reached millions – running soup kitchens, supporting clinics, keeping infrastructure going, and launching education and women’s initiatives.
Mutual aid is central to many crises, but the scale and impact of local efforts in Sudan has been profound, and volunteers say their solidarity-based model offers a blueprint for both a new kind of politics and a radically different humanitarian response.
To mark two years of conflict, here is a list of some of our best recent reporting on mutual aid – almost all of it written by Sudanese journalists who double up as emergency response room volunteers, working either inside or outside the country.
The list highlights both the breadth of the work and the challenges volunteers face – from security threats by the warring parties to chronic funding shortages, now worsened by US cuts that have disrupted key programmes.
Read the rest at the New Humanitarian
Add new comment