A grant award of USD40,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) awarded to SUDIA is being used to build the technical capacity of, and strengthen the cooperation between, civil society organizations (CSOs) and independent media outlets in North Sudan. read more ...

On February 24^th SUDIA arranged the first of five workshops about Management facilitated by Uztaza Siham T. Almujamar at the SUDIA HQ. Funded by the NED grant SUDIA is building the capacity of young leaders and teaching basic management skills in the following five steps: Action Learning, Goal Setting, Problem solving / Creativity, Situational Leadership, and Project Management. The first one about Action Learning was very positively received by the participants. The 16 attendees enjoyed the “Learning by doing”- methodology and the challenges they were presented with. Uztaza Siham requested that they would look for effective solutions straight away, rather than dwelling on endless theoretical issues. The foundation is Effective Listening. Without such a skill it is impossible to come up with any constructive feedback. The follow-up training session is due to take place on the Sunday the 29^th of February. 

 

On Monday the 17^th of October SUDIA conducted the third discussion forum in accordance with the grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The workshop this time targeted youth, especially youth who are active and engaged in civil society. Twenty talkative and enthusiastic activists participated, with the aim of opening up for debate among young people in Sudan, and creating awareness of new tools for communication. 

Nagi Musa, a youth activist, said the following as he was leaving the workshop filled with new inspiration: “This is a new thing in Sudan. It was great to be surrounded by such a large pool of potential. These young women and men want to use media as a tool for advocacy finally moving the Sudanese into the real world”.

Two comprehensive presentations were shared, listing old means of communication like smoke signals and drums, up until today’s state of Twitter, Facebook, You tube and online chatting programs. The participants concluded, that these are powerful tools which first and foremost can work to build up solid networks of likeminded individuals and can be used to strengthen relationships, disseminate information and advocate for human rights etc. However, there are challenges in this era of new media as well, and another workshop on technical security was requested from the crowd. 

 

In accordance with SUDIA’s current democracy-enhancing project funded by NED (National Endowment for Democracy), September 18th saw the second of six related fora unfold at the SUDIA HQ, aiming to strengthen ties between media and civil society. The topic this time was ‘the constitution making process and the factors that influence it’ using participatory tools to encourage active debate. Eighteen proactive individuals from both media and various sides of civil society attended and contributed their knowledge and experience, agreeing on a need to continue the important debate to encourage widening involvement in the constitution making process. An informative talk by Dr. Abdel Rahim Belal spurred discussions and the youth representing their new media capacity building NGO voiced fresh and creative ideas. Read more in the online newspaper Sudanile.

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Representatives from SUDIA, SICM (Sudanese Initiative for Constitution Making) and Al Ayam newspaper met to discuss possible partnership for enhancing cooperation between media and civil society. The meeting among other things resulted in the successful establishment of a committee which will get together regularly in order to work out a strategy for further democratizing activities. A set of forums is being arranged, the first one due to take place in the SUDIA headquarters on September 11^th.