Photo: Zohra Bensemra | Reuters
Community-based mutual aid groups are playing a leading role in the humanitarian response to Sudan's conflict, introducing a new form of decentralized service-delivery and self-governance in their neighborhoods despite the risks they face for doing so. Youth-driven volunteer networks have set up "emergency response rooms" across Sudan which are sheltering displaced people, supporting hospitals, and securing food and water supplies. They say their decentralized, horizontal structure and people-centered principles showcase a different kind of politics in Sudan. While many international aid groups have suspended programs and laid off hundreds of mostly Sudanese aid workers, emergency rooms have remained active across the country, supported by diaspora and local groups, including mosques, churches, local businesses, and market merchants. "The beautiful thing is that we come together and spend time doing this, which is therapeutic and purposeful," said one volunteer. "Beautiful values emerged from this hardship, and I hope they will continue afterwards."
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