90 Sudanese women with disabilities trained to improve their skills to start up their own business

90 women attended the ‘Vocational Training workshop for Women with Disabilities in Kordofan States’ celebrated from 20 to 25 July 2019 and organised by the Sudanese National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) in collaboration with the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), implementation partner of Bridging the Gap in Sudan.

The workshop took place in three cities, El-Obied, Kadugli and Al-Fula, placed in North, South and West Kordofan respectively, targeting 30 women in each state to promote their active participation in the economic and social life of their communities backing a culture of awareness and self-empowerment.

This activity is in line with article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Committee’s general comment No. 3 (2016) on women and girls with disabilities, and with goal 8 of the SDGs which encourage the formalization and growth of micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.

Therefore, the three training activities addressed practical issues like handcraft and micro-business, which easily allowed to attract participants from remote locations with fewer opportunities, providing them, at the same time, the necessary approach on rights and awareness, which might encounter more resistance if addressed differently.

The business activities developed during this training will be monitored and followed up by the local trainers, linking up the participants with the local organizations operating in different sectors and including the employment opportunities for women with disabilities in preparedness, mitigation and risk reduction strategies.

Inclusive WASH training for development practitioners

Bridging the Gap team in Sudan also organized on 28 July 2019 at AICS Khartoum Office a pilot workshop on inclusive practices applied to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions addressed to all the technical AICS Sudan’s staff from the Offices of Khartoum, Gedaref, Kassala and Port Sudan. It also targeted representatives from the NGO OVCI and their partners’ organisations, involving Humanitarian and Development projects financed by AICS, the European Unión and United Nations’s agencies.

The meeting was also an opportunity to foster the discussion on what the barriers commonly met are, what does it mean to be inclusive and how it is possible to most inclusive as possible when planning, implementing and monitoring WASH activities. It emerged clearly from the discussion that an inclusive approach in WASH interventions not only is honourable and recommendable, but it is also an utmost duty as International Community of Development Practitioners and Humanitarians which reduces the social costs related to exclusion of minority groups.

The success of this activity was highlighted by the interest of the group in other specific activities on inclusion in other areas such as Education, Social Protection or Inclusive Budget Planning.