SHE is the WORLD

Alaa Babiker

Being a woman is the most powerful being of all times. The “description” of a woman varies from country to country, and from a culture to another. Some believe that women are the core of life, and other think their role only ends at the door step of their houses. But out of all these differences, we see them struggle but fight, cry with patience, argue with respect, and might yell but with love.

Today I am very motivated to write about some elements of women empowerment, as during the recent years, the government of Sudan has given much attention to women regarding their rights to have power to control their own lives combined with their right to have and to determine choices, specially at child support and custody, and this was a sign that women of Sudan are going at the right direction. In the past, divorced women were struggling to travel with the accompany of their children when having a work contract for example, because some men used to use this as a breaking tool against them, but as laws were reformed, now women can have more choices and can set their lives and the lives of their children to better conditions.

Another aspect of women empowerment element is their ability to influence the direction of social, and fortunately in Sudan women are truly the generation of social relationships building and preserving, which is a very important aspect of life. In old days, our grandmothers used to be very wise about building social relationships, starting with their in-laws continuing to their children and coming to their neighbors, their built-up relations last for decades, and certainly served as wisdom to control and end conflicts at the neighbor level, up to the district level. As up to now, women at different places of Sudan, sing wisdom songs to make all men come into an alliance and work hard for the sake of the right doing. This make us think of the next element of women empowerment; their right to have access to opportunities and resources. To make women more capable and empowered, they need to have access to more resources and be awarded more opportunities at different aspects of life, as over the years, researchers have concluded that women tend to think at different directions at the same time, their mind think differently and at some things with more efficiency, this prioritize their capabilities of success at many fields, and they are succeeding. There are great Sudanese women who succeeded nationally and internationally, leaving the world admired by their work, these are the kinds of women we look up to for the sake of Sudan.

The last element of women empowerment is women’s sense of self-worth, this is the element that we truly need to strengthen and plant inside our daughters and sisters. Many communities still burry women inside houses, without giving them a chance to fulfill their basic rights like education. Mentioning this point, major efforts need to be directed to raise the general awareness of these communities, as it is important to keep women empowered. We can do much better, we can achieve greatly, we can be more, because we are WOMEN!