About Me
I am a development economist, pan-African feminist peacebuilder, writer, and organizer tracing how girls, young women, and grassroots women leaders shape political and economic life, healing, and collective futures. For more than a decade, my work has focused on supporting girls’ and young women’s leadership, strengthening grassroots women’s organizing, and building spaces to document and archive South Sudanese girls’ and women’s voices, leadership, and political memory.
The Roots of my Work
My feminist beliefs are deeply influenced by the women I grew up around. My mother was part of the Katiba Banat (the Girls Battalion), a small group of teenage girls and young women who joined the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army during the second Sudanese civil war. The courage it took for them to make that decision became clearer to me as I got older. Many of them faced stigma and backlash for stepping outside the roles expected of girls, yet they persisted.
Growing up, I was surrounded by my mother’s circle of friends from that time. Their bond was so strong that, as a child, I thought they were my biological aunts. Their sisterhood, how they supported each other through war, displacement, and the long years afterward, showed me early on the power of women’s solidarity and collective care.
At the same time, I observed the contradictions within our society at home. In a polygamous household filled with emotional and financial tensions, I witnessed firsthand how deeply patriarchal systems shape women’s lives. I did not yet have the words to describe these dynamics, but the questions they raised stayed with me and later became part of the foundation of my feminist thinking.
In many ways, my work is rooted in those early observations, shaped by both the courage of the women who contributed and fought for our liberation from various fronts and the unfinished struggles South Sudanese women and girls continue to face in daily life. Today, as a mother of three daughters, those questions feel even more pressing. My work is not only about understanding the world we inherited but also about contributing to building a different future for the generations that follow.
Organizing and Community
These early experiences gradually shaped the direction of my work. Much of what I do at home today takes place alongside girls, young women, and grassroots women leaders navigating conflict, displacement, and economic hardship. Over the years, I have worked with women-led organizations, feminist networks, and peacebuilding institutions across South Sudan and the wider region, with a particular focus on how women and girls access resources and build collective power in fragile contexts.
In 2020, I co-envisaged Ma’Mara Sakit Village, a women-led social enterprise and feminist community initiative rooted in South Sudan that focuses on women’s economic solidarity, cultural preservation, and collective leadership. Through this work, we explore how community-based economies, storytelling, and feminist organizing can strengthen girls’ and women’s autonomy while creating spaces for healing, collective care, and long-term movement-building.
International Peacebuilding Practice
Alongside my feminist work at home and in the region, I have led international peacebuilding efforts focused on youth leadership, conflict transformation, and engagement between civil society and security-sector actors. Primarily focused on supporting peacekeeping and security actors, facilitating gender and trauma-informed approaches to conflict transformation.
I have trained and mentored hundreds of youth peacebuilders from conflict-affected regions across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. Additionally, I have worked with peacekeepers, police officers, and instructors at police and peacekeeping training institutions on the continent and in Southeast Asia, supporting trainers, instructors, and security-sector leaders to strengthen gender-responsive, trauma-informed, and community-centered approaches to peace and security. I have led dialogue initiatives that bring together community-based organizations and security-sector leaders to foster more accountable relationships between communities and security institutions. I also contribute to regional and international peacebuilding, resourcing, and feminist initiatives through advisory and board roles.
Why this Space
The demands of work, organizing, motherhood, and everyday life often leave little room to sit with my thoughts and put them into words. This website is, in part, my way of reclaiming that practice, a space that pushes me to write in real time, to reflect, and to think through the questions that emerge from my experiences.
In this space, I write primarily with young South Sudanese feminists in mind, young women who are thinking, questioning, organizing, and imagining different futures for our country. When I first found my way into feminist thinking and activism, I often wished there were more spaces where these ideas were being written and shared openly. This space is a small attempt to create the kind of intellectual and political community I once searched for. Writing and making my thoughts accessible is one way of thinking alongside young South Sudanese feminists, sharing ideas, and contributing to the growing body of feminist thought emerging from South Sudan. At the same time, the writing here engages readers interested in questions of gender, culture, and political life in South Sudan and across the region.