My goal is to support rural women to have rights of education, representation, and contribution to society for the benefit of future generations in the Sudan.

Aida Ahmed (40) is the coordinator of outlying rural women's developments in conflict-based underprivileged areas in the Sudan. She is an active member of several community-serving societies, such as the SOS Sahel-UK, the Small-Scale Enterprise Society (SSES) and the Sudanese Family Planning Society (SFPS). She works hard towards financing small projects and marketing processes for rural people. Her main goal is particularly to support rural women to become self-dependent by reducing poverty impacts upon their lives and introducing alternative options for income and sustainable development.

Since April 2002 Aida has been working on capacity-building of rural women with emphasis on pastoralists. She is working in an absolutely traditional and tribal-based society. Over 90% of the women there are illiterate. The living conditions are challengingly critical, where poverty and limited sources are very obvious and health care is very poor. Young women face crucial problems, such as early marriage and young maternity as well as circumcision. With a determination to improve the conditions of the underprivileged women, Aida set out to work hard on a life-long mission, often relying on her mother – who strongly believes in Aida’s mission – to look after her children. Aida created many methods to boost women’s work capacity through mass media, airing edifying programs on the state-run radio and TV, presenting video shows and holding discussion groups. She fights for rural women’s right to education and representation as well as to express a positive viewpoint to solve local conflicts.

Small-Scale Enterprise Society (SSES) Sudanese Family Planning Society (SFPS)