The decades of the previous regime of Omer al Bashir have been characterized by grave and a narrow space for civil society activism and declines in the civic education levels among Sudan’s youth. Since the 2018 revolution and throughout the following transitional process, it has become clear that civic education – in particular understanding the concept of democracy – is the very basis for civil society initiatives to work towards a successful transition to a new government that promotes gender equality and representation of marginalised societal groups. Throughout the revolutionary period, topics such as citizen rights, corruption and transitional justice have been addressed in public discourse – an opportunity to fill the gaps allowing civil society organisations to spread a basic vocabulary of civic education. Women are already discriminated against when it comes to access to formal education and mobility, also have less access to (especially digital) media. Therefore Bana Group for Peace and Development focuses on marginalised women in the civic education awareness activities, supporting their mobilization to influence new governmental institutions while they take shape.
Our approach:
We consider civic education as a basic package of knowledge, which the citizen can build on individually based on the context they live in. Women are the social group most affected by the violation of basic citizen rights, apparent from their lack of representation across all levels of governance in Sudan. Our target groups are on the one hand youth community activists (male and female), and on the other hand women and women groups, where the focus is on selected civic education topics according to their context together with organisational capacity building.
- Awareness workshops with focus on citizens’ rights
- Training workshops with women and youth activists from marginalised communities
- Cooperation in advocacy initiatives on women political participation
Completed activities:
Civic education forum discussion series about sustainable development in cooperation with Tahady organisation in Khartoum
Awareness Workshops about Transitional Justice in IDP communities in Khartoum State: Dar El-Salam, Umm Badda, Hajj Youssif