Women’s Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan redefine grassroots democracy, blending care, resistance, and empowerment amid the ongoing war.
Introduction: The Rise of Civic Power in Times of Crisis
In the chaos of Sudan’s war that erupted in April 2023, an extraordinary grassroots movement has redefined both humanitarian aid and democratic participation. Women’s Emergency Response Rooms have emerged as vital spaces where civic politics, care, and resistance intersect. These rooms are not merely humanitarian centers; they are living embodiments of people-driven democracy in wartime Sudan. Their story is not just about survival, it is about transformation, empowerment, and the reimagining of political participation under the harshest conditions.
Far from being temporary shelters or aid points, these rooms carry the legacy of Sudan’s revolutionary struggles since the December 2018 uprising. They are the continuation of women’s active role in reshaping society, creating civic spaces, and pushing forward a feminist vision for justice and equality. Their impact stretches far beyond food distribution or medical relief, as they are rewriting the social contract between communities and power.
1. From Resistance Committees to Emergency Response Rooms
The origins of Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms can be traced back to the Resistance Committees, grassroots political groups that led the mobilization during the 2018 revolution. These committees became the backbone of Sudanese popular sovereignty, advocating for decentralization, citizen participation, and radical democratic reform.
When war engulfed the country in 2023, the Emergency Response Rooms evolved from organizing protests into delivering life-saving services. They became the first line of defense against state collapse, offering clean water, food, evacuation, and support for hospitals. But their deeper significance lay in their commitment to civic politics, turning relief efforts into a collective practice of democracy at the community level.
Within this network, Women’s Emergency Response Rooms took root. They were not a separate entity but a feminist extension of the broader resistance ethos. Their work connected political activism with humanitarian necessity, bringing women’s voices and needs into the heart of civic transformation.
2. The Feminist Roots of the Women’s Rooms
Women played a central role in the 2018 revolution, challenging both militarization and patriarchy. They claimed public spaces, made women’s issues visible in political debates, and demanded accountability from state institutions. The Women’s Rooms are a natural extension of this revolutionary feminist struggle.
Unlike traditional aid structures, these rooms address not only material needs but also social and political realities. They provide safe havens for women, promote economic cooperatives, and establish systems of accountability for sexual violence. Their work reflects an understanding that care itself is political, and that survival in wartime cannot be separated from justice and dignity.
Protocols for responding to sexual violence draw on decades of activism against Omar al-Bashir’s regime. By integrating feminist knowledge into their humanitarian practices, Women’s Rooms transform trauma into a foundation for new forms of solidarity and civic action.
3. Local Knowledge as a Source of Strength
A defining feature of the Women’s Rooms is their reliance on local knowledge. Volunteers, many of them teachers, midwives, and ordinary housewives, design interventions based on their communities’ needs. From dignity kits assembled from local markets when international supplies failed, to cooperatives producing soap and bread, these initiatives reflect adaptability and resilience.
This bottom-up model allows Women’s Rooms to act faster than centralized relief systems. It also expands participation to women who had never engaged in political activism before, creating new networks of solidarity. In conservative communities where women were once excluded from public life, Women’s Rooms have created spaces where cooperation, healing, and empowerment are possible.
4. The Ethics of Care as Revolutionary Praxis
At the heart of Women’s Rooms lies the ethics of care. This framework goes beyond humanitarian duty, emphasizing relationships, compassion, and practical concern as guiding principles. For Sudanese women activists, care is not secondary to politics, it is politics.
Through Women’s Rooms, this philosophy has become a lived reality. Volunteers reject artificial divisions between resistance and relief. By documenting and responding to cases of sexual violence, creating psychological support networks, and ensuring community-led decision-making, Women’s Rooms demonstrate that care is a revolutionary practice capable of reshaping society.
5. Services Beyond Survival
Women’s Rooms provide a comprehensive set of services that blend emergency relief with long-term empowerment. These include:
- Medical and psychological care for survivors of sexual violence
- Safe evacuation and shelter for women and children fleeing conflict zones
- Reproductive health support, often improvised under severe shortages
- Economic cooperatives producing crafts, food, and household goods
- Educational and recreational programs for children and displaced families
What began as emergency measures have grown into organized structures that sustain entire communities. These services blur the line between aid and social transformation, showing how crisis can generate new democratic practices.
6. Decentralization and Collective Decision-Making
Unlike international aid organizations with rigid hierarchies, Women’s Rooms operate through decentralized decision-making. Each room adapts to its local context, consulting women about their needs, food preferences, and safe spaces. This model ensures both flexibility and accountability, reinforcing the principle that popular sovereignty belongs in the hands of citizens, not distant institutions.
However, this autonomy also exposes Women’s Rooms to challenges. Funding shortages, exclusion from donor coordination mechanisms, and lack of official recognition limit their capacity. Yet, their resilience lies precisely in their independence from bureaucratic systems.
7. Exclusion and the Struggle for Recognition
Despite their transformative role, Women’s Rooms face systemic marginalization. They are often excluded from decision-making bodies like the Localization Coordination Council, which controls emergency response structures. This exclusion means women’s needs receive only minimal funding, leaving critical gaps in services.
This paradox reveals a deeper struggle: while Women’s Rooms embody grassroots democracy, institutional structures continue to ignore them. Yet, by persisting, they expose the flaws of top-down aid systems and highlight the necessity of feminist-led, community-centered approaches.
8. Stories of Resistance and Care
Individual testimonies illustrate the power of Women’s Rooms. Tama, a volunteer, described how the war transformed resistance into a humanitarian struggle for survival. Nyana spoke of women’s branch offices emerging even in conservative areas, where informal coffee circles grew into cooperatives and healing spaces. Mroy, a pharmacist, recounted secretly treating survivors of sexual violence in RSF-controlled zones.
These stories reveal that Women’s Rooms are more than institutions, they are living networks of resistance, care, and solidarity. They prove that democracy can flourish not only in parliaments but also in kitchens, clinics, and safe spaces created by women in wartime.
9. Civic Politics in Action: Linking Relief to Democracy
The impact of Women’s Rooms extends beyond humanitarian relief. They embody a form of civic politics rooted in popular participation and collective sovereignty. By decentralizing decision-making, integrating feminist knowledge, and centering care as a political value, they create a democratic framework within communities ravaged by war.
This model challenges dominant assumptions that democracy must wait until after peace is secured. Instead, Women’s Rooms demonstrate that democracy can be built during war, in spaces where women cook, heal, and organize together.
10. Towards a New Future: Care, Democracy, and Transformation
The legacy of Women’s Rooms lies not only in what they provide but in what they represent: a redefinition of democracy itself. They show that democracy is not an abstract ideal but a lived practice of care, solidarity, and collective decision-making. In doing so, they challenge patriarchal power structures and offer a vision of political life rooted in human dignity.
For the women of Sudan, these rooms are not just emergency spaces, they are laboratories of a future society where justice, equality, and compassion guide political action. As one volunteer put it, what began as coping mechanisms have now become official extensions of our women’s network, proof that care can be both medicine and mobilization.
In this sense, Women’s Rooms are not temporary relief projects but enduring sites of transformation. They stand as proof that even in the darkest moments of war, communities can nurture democracy from below.
Conclusion
Sudan’s Women’s Emergency Response Rooms embody the resilience of communities and the transformative power of grassroots democracy. They combine survival with solidarity, care with resistance, and humanitarian aid with feminist politics. More than humanitarian centers, they are revolutionary spaces where civic politics takes root and flourishes.
They remind us that democracy is not postponed until peace is achieved. It is forged in the struggles of everyday life, in kitchens, clinics, and community gatherings where women organize to heal, empower, and resist. In wartime Sudan, women’s rooms have proven that care itself is a radical act of democracy.
For further insights into the role of women’s grassroots initiatives in Sudan’s civic politics, see African Arguments – Women’s Emergency Response Rooms.
