Awadeya Mahmoud

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US Secretary of State John Kerry presents the International Women of Courage Award 2016 to Awadeya Mahmoud from Sudan, founder and chairwoman of the Women's Food and Tea Sellers' Cooperative and the Women's Multi-Purpose Cooperative for Khartoum State, on March 29, 2016 in the US State Department in Washington, DC

Awadeya Mahmoud ( Arabic عوضية محمود; * 1963 in the South Kordofan region , Sudan ) is a Sudanese founder of a cooperative and women's rights activist. She is the founder and chairwoman of the Women's Food and Tea Sellers' Cooperative and the Women's Multi-Purpose Cooperative for the Sudanese state of al-Chartum . On March 29, 2016, she received the International Women of Courage Award for 2016 from the United States Department of State .

Life

Awadeya Mahmoud was born in 1963 in the Sudanese region of South Kordofan , a conflict- torn region that her family soon left to move to Khartoum . She married and began selling tea in 1986 - one of the few opportunities for uneducated women to support a family. In 1990 she founded a cooperative that offered its members legal assistance and support. It was called the Women's Food and Tea Sellers' Cooperative (German: women's cooperative for food and tea sellers) and Women's Multi-Purpose Cooperative (German: women's multi-purpose cooperative).

Thanks to the cooperative's office, it was now financially possible to appeal against police harassment - such as the confiscation of the sellers' equipment. Tea sellers, who are often displaced or refugees from the conflict regions ( Darfur , South Sudan ) and work alone on the streets, are discriminated against in the conservative Sudanese society and are exposed to sexual harassment.

Not all measures were successful, for example she and other members of the cooperative had to spend four years in prison from 2006 onwards due to high debts. After her release, she continued her work with and for women and became chair of a cooperative network with around 8,000 members in and around Khartoum.

Awards and honors

On March 28, 2016, the United States Department of State announced that she would be one of fourteen recipients of the International Women of Courage Award for the year. She was reportedly back to work in her cooperative immediately after receiving the award and spending ten days in the United States. She wanted to use the attention gained through the award to expand the work of the cooperative to include regions outside the capital, as the underlying problem of the social stigmatization of women is not limited to Khartoum.

Web links

Commons : Awadeya Mahmoud  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Awadeya Mahmoud Koko: From tea seller to union leader to 'mother of the revolution'. In: madamasr.com. Retrieved February 1, 2020 (American English).
  2. ↑ a b Biographies of 2016 Award Winners. In: state.gov. web.archive.org, 2016, archived from the original on March 30, 2016 ; accessed on January 31, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b U.S. State Department honors 14 leaders from around the world - Women in the World. In: womenintheworld.com. Accessed January 31, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c AFP: Tea lady's journey from Sudan to White House - Lifestyle - Emirates24 | 7. In: emirates247.com. Accessed January 31, 2020 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Mahmoud, Awadeya
ALTERNATIVE NAMES عوضية محمود (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sudanese co-founder and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH South Kordofan Region , Sudan