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Handmade Craft Workshops
This Sudanese initiative brings together women from different conflicting tribes (often IDPs from the war-torn Darfur region) and helps them work together on handmade items and craftwork. The women thus realise the benefits of working together, of peace, and of overcoming tribal conflict.
Description
It is known that families who live in Dar El Salam are people who fled Darfur after the war began. The women who attend these workshops are mainly Darfurian, and are known for their ability at handicrafts. The Together Art Centre provides them with the material to help them get going and elaborates on their work by showing them the advantage of working together across tribal boundaries. For example, Huda, a woman from the Zagawa tribe, is very good at knitting but she is not so good at craftwork whilst her colleague Kaltoum from the Rizigat tribe (which is in conflict with the Zagawas) is very good at craftwork so each one learns from the other and learns of normal, peaceful life. Together Art Centre tries to collect women from different tribes to work on handmade goods. In the workshops there are women from Zagawa, Meseerea, Rizegat and Taaysha tribes.
Aims / Objectives
The aims and objectives of the workshops were to teach women from different tribes that they are in need of each other and that they can benefit from sharing their knowledge and skills with the tribes they have been in conflict with.
How it is Articulated
As the staff study art and part of their study is in handmade work they go to the centre in Ombada and they continue to train the women for 6 days. Together Art Centre also has a field centre in Dar El salam which is used as the site for the 6 day workshops.
Achievements / Learning Points
The workshop leader asks each woman about her tribe. If she says, for instance, that she is from Hamar and they have conflict with the Meserea then she chooses a woman from Meserea to work with her. She also gives them every tool they might need to work together; they speak, joke, cooperate and live peacefully. By the end of the workshop the women themselves discover that they are in need of peace and promise to continue to cooperate in the future through such work. For Sudanese people it's a real achievement because we know their mentality: if you have a conflict with a person from a different tribe you shouldn’t speak to them, you shouldn't even eat from the same dish as them. So what they are doing in the workshops is really a great achievement.
Geographical Area of Operation
Dar El Salam – Ombada
Funding Resources
Development Alternatives, Incorporated (DAI)