I use my talents as a dancer, actress and singer as a means of celebrating the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious background of our Sudanese society.

Anita Batris Amiro (32) is one of the pioneering Sudanese women who contributed to founding the Kwoto Cultural Center (KCC) in 1994. She is a singer, dancer and actress. Her works cover the entire Sudanese states, especially the capital Khartoum, where they are presented in international festivals and film competitions. Anita works hard to effectuate peace and love and to promote human rights in order to enhance the conditions of the displaced citizens of southern Sudan and the entire country.

Anita Batris Amiro has faced many challenges in her life. Her parents died when she was three months old. However, she surmounted her unfortunate social circumstances and successfully completed her high school education. Because she could not find financial support to pursue her university education she worked as a teacher in elementary schools from 1992 to 1993. The Kwoto Cultural Center is dedicated to the betterment of people’s lives through art works. The center promotes peace and reconciliation and fights epidemic diseases, such as HIV and Aids. Kwoto’s quest for cultural pluralism represents the key initiative to the establishment of democracy in the Sudan. It strives for better understanding and tolerance of the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity in the Sudan, which has been the source of tension and violence in the country. With the collaborative efforts of KCC members, Anita has helped to establish a cultural movement that supports Southern Sudanese people and allows them freedom of speech, which they were previously denied. The lack of democracy, tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for human rights in the Sudan has fueled the civil war that claimed the lives of approximately two million Sudanese and has displaced over four million people who had to leave their homes and live in large camps in very meager conditions. In this situation Anita thought that the best way of helping her people was by reaching them in their own environment. She held dancing and singing festivals in order to raise people’s awareness of significant issues, such as peace promotion and fighting HIV/Aids. Anita encountered many difficulties in the course of her work, the greatest of which were her journeys to isolated areas, risking her life, due to the severely critical attitude of her shows towards the government’s violation of human rights.

Kwoto Cultural Centre (KCC)