Concluding the first workshop

Today, I completed the fourth and final day of training for the SuWEP women in Khartoum on elections, fundraising, and advocacy. I have mixed feelings: relieved to no longer have the stress of preparing and designing the sessions, accomplished in that I can actually point to something that I was able to create and contribute towards the women’s movement here, and humbled by the gratitude I received from the participants in the training.

At the conclusion of the last session, we handed out workshop certificates to all of the participants. Rawda put the certificate content together and Ayman professionally designed them. Logos for Salmmah, SuWEP, and Harvard are at the top of the certificate which acknowledges each woman’s participation in the trainings, and Fahima, Rawda, and I each signed at the bottom. You would not believe how excited the women were to receive their certificates. We even did a rating system where women received a 1 for attending all the sessions, a 2 if they missed one session, and a 3 if they missed two or more sessions. It was made clear to me that we must distinguish between those with perfect attendance and those who missed some sessions.

A reporter for the El Maidan newspaper attended the training and will be writing an article about it. She is interested in writing about women peace builders taking a role in advocacy campaigns and the upcoming elections. I am doing an interview with her on Sunday, and she will be publishing an article (in Arabic, of course) the following week. I’ll be sure to let you know how it turns out after I’m able to have my colleagues translate it for me.