Zenab For Women In Development (Success Story)

Zenab For Women In Development (ZWD)

ECOSOC SPECIAL CONSULTATIVE STATUS SINCE 2005
Deim Hammad District , House no.12, Elgedarif City, Sudan
P.O.POX 79 , Elgedarif Sudan ,
Elgedarif City Tel: 2491549981617,249912983931
Khartoum 3 , BuouQuan St., Khartoum City, Sudan
Khartoum Tel : 249155140491,249918220376
Fax:Sudan: 249155140491,E.mail:zenabnj@yahoo.com
www.z-w-d-s.org

Feb./15/2007


I am now writing to ask if you would consider the success stories from Zenab for Women in Development (ZWD ), a Sudanese women’s rights and Development organization.

Zenab for Women is one of the very few active women’s organizations operating in Sudan , it starts its work in the eastern part of Sudan. This region has had to absorb many of the internally displaced from Darfur, in addition to the refugees from Eritrea and Ethiopia. The situation for women in this region is extremely difficult, as we deal with major health issues, economic insecurity, and political instability.

Zenab for Women was founded in the year 2000. The mission of ZWD gender equality and women empowerment through education and enhancement of their health , other projects includes peace- building and conflict resolution at the grass root level and social mobilization towards community development in Sudan, eradication of harmful practices such as FGM and early marriage; and enhancement of child rights,. (With limited funding (tiny project grants from African Women’s Development Fund, UNIFEM, Madre, the Irmas Foundation, IMESCO as well as private donations from within Sudan and the diasporas) the organization has focused on girls education, women health specifically reproductive health, building women’s leadership through capacity building, educating women on violence against women and FGM, supporting Darfur women in the refugee camps, and concentrated campaign on HIV/AIDS awareness.

Zenab for Women in Development has three offices in Sudan, the head quarter office is in Elgedarif City, Eastern Sudan, one office is in Niala - S. Darfur, and one office is in Khartoum, plus coordination office in the USA to participate at International level at the UN head quarter office in NY, also to attract US Donors since the organization been registered in the US and been exempted from tax.

The main goal of ZWD is to empower women and improve their livelihood , this why ZWD concentrate first in girls education , ZWD supported girls from poor families to go for primary educations by paying the fees for them , buying their uniform & books , also ZWD supported girls from poor families to go for University education , ZWD already supported 10 girls now graduated from different specialization, those girls one of them is a medical Doctor , a computer scientist , business administration who are now employed at ZWD office in Elgedarif City, the rest of the girls now are working and already supported their families and their sisters to continue their education, still because we believe in education as a key factor of girls and women empowerment , it is no. one MDGs for poverty elevation , last year we supported 600 girls and women who dropped off schools for different reasons like early marriage and others, those girls and women were sat for secondary and high schools diplomas exam because we partner with other organization and we paid the fees for their exams, most of them now in different schools and colleges, also we are going to do the same thing this year.
ZWD is about to build school for girls in one of the marginalized districts of Elgedarif City , those like 500 girls who walk very long distance to go to their primary school , this school which those girls go for their primary education was established since 1957 by the woman who is name is given to this organization, now the Community leaders of this District convinced the Government to give them the land , but they don’t have the capability of building it, ZWD now took the responsibility to find fund and to build this school to help those girls and take from them the burden of walking these long distance and to concentrate on their study .
Peace building project because the security come first to enable women to work and produce to feed themselves and their families to elevate poverty , so our peace-building project: training up to 75 women community leaders on Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and other protocols as well as organizing groups of peace-builders among the women of Eastern and Western ( Darfur) Sudan. As you know, peace building programs are very important at this critical time specifically as Sudan has been torn apart by civil war for years, and this problem has become more complicated after the humanitarian disaster in Darfur Region with more recent conflict in Eastern Sudan. Although peace agreements have been signed between the different parties (Government of Sudan and the SPLM) it is considered a fragile peace agreement which needs much support from all over the world as well as much attention and support from inside Sudan including the civil societies and Community based organization , we started this projects with the displaced women from the South and the West in Eastern region of Sudan, also we extended our project to Darfur region it self , our projects in Darfur also beside peace building includes : 1) Distributing of food like Millet , Sorghum, Onion, sugar, dates , as the main source of food to the people, the food been collected and purchased from inside Sudan to the Refugees camps ( Like Autash) , (attached are some pictures , )
2) In order to help the in securing the women ZWD managed to build some rest rooms from the local material, which did help many women from going far to do their needs and faced with dangerous situation like rape and etc. (attached pics.)
3) in order to make women busy inside the camps because they sit there for almost 4 years we work with other 4 grass roots organizations ( women organization) , we established women center , we bring the raw materials for the women who have prepared very nice staff , like shoes, bags, crafts and others, we were faced with the problem of marketing because we would like those women to have revenue from their work, so we managed as a network of the 5 NGOs to take most of the products to the Khartoum International Expedition , it cost us at least $ 1000 for each NGO , but it was very good chance for the women because we took couple of them to sell their product , one of the visitor of the Exhibition is a prince came from Kuat, she liked the work the women were done she invited all the women to bring more products to be sell in KUAT, this happened on Feb 1st ,this month. Now a round 65 Darfurian women been invited and are preparing their crafts and other products to be sell in KUAT, this true empowerment.
There are many programs been conducted to raise the awareness of HIV/AIDS, 60 women from different 60 Districts of Elgedarif been trained to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS plus to combat FGM, these programs been extends to different villages and rural areas, also big campaign been started since Nov25 /2006 about violence against women, big workshop been held on Dec, 9, 10 /2006 at Elgedarif Farmers Hall, many people were participating including Governments Authorities, (pictures attached).
ZWD effort to help the women farmers now we are making all the efforts to form the women farmers Unions , also we trying to help them to secure for them Agriculture inputs including the seeds for the upcoming seasons , we discussed this with the Authority at the National level .

Sincerely,

Fatima Ahmed
(Founder and President)
Biographic Details of Fatima Ahmed

Fatima Ahmed is a community leader from Sudan. She is a P.H.D candidate from the University of Gezira, Sudan, and holds a Masters Degree in plant physiology from a joint program between University of Gezira and the International Center for Agricultural Researches in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria. Her research background led her to focus on women farmers. Throughout her education she sought leadership roles and was often the only female involved in student governance. In 2000, she founded Zenab for Women in Development in order to promote peace-building, women’s rights, women’s reproductive health and girl’s education. For her work she has been awarded the name Ambassador of Peace from WFIP. Ms. Ahmed's mother, in whose name she founded Zenab, was the first woman to be educated in Elgedarif state back in 1930s. She founded many schools for girls in the region (1940s-1980s) before retiring and was one of 1000 Peace women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.