Welcome to SSWEN

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In 2005, SSWEN expanded its outreach effort and Lilian and her co-founders traveled the United States at their own expense to speak directly with Southern Sudanese women and learn more about their concerns and the challenges they face. This outreach culminated in the first national SSWEN conference held in Phoenix, Arizona in December of 2005.

In June 2006, SSWEN received its 501(c)3 status as a not-for-profit organization. SSWEN now has representatives in 7 states (AZ, , MN, NJ, SD, TX, WA, and Washington, D.C.), and in Toronto- Canada, Cairo-Egypt, London-England, Berlin-Germany, and Juba and Khartoum, Sudan.

The SSWEN Mission
SSWEN is a non-profit organization that enables the empowerment of Sudanese women in Sudan and in the Diaspora, through programs that support and encourage women’s rights, education, policy advocacy, and organizational development. We are committed to the empowerment of Sudanese women and to helping them achieve economic, social, and gender justice in the civil society sector, and building a healthy and peaceful community and country, with human rights for all.

The SSWEN Vision
SSWEN strives to alleviate the factors that contribute to poverty and social distress, and to improve communication and the dissemination of information that will lead to social inclusion and equality. We dedicate ourselves to support for the poor, vulnerable women in Sudan, and in the Diaspora. In pursuit of these goals, we provide interpersonal assistance and information to women about education and social services, we organize instruction and develop trainers who will teach organizational development and women’s advocacy, and we raise awareness among local, national, and international leaders about the plight of Sudanese women.

SSWEN Core Values
The key values that guide our work are inherent in everything we do. We use these values to shape our work, and to ensure that our approach is consistent with our results. We list them without reference to priority, because they are of equal value in how we live our professional and personal lives.

Respect - We are each unique individuals and as we grow we and explore our individuality, we also respect the unique qualities and contributions of others.

Teamwork – By definition, ‘teamwork’ is the ability and the willingness to work together toward a common vision. A commitment to teamwork demands that individual accomplishments are directed toward organizational objectives. Teamwork is the ingredient that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Responsibility - We are not responsible for the attitudes and programming we inherited in childhood. However, as adults, we are 100% responsible for changing negative attitudes and behavior and improving our relationships and interactions with others. We become wise not by the recollection of our past, but by taking responsibility for our future.

SSWEN Goals
SSWEN goals were developed to support our Mission and Vision and the Values we espouse.

1) Promote leadership and training for women to enable empowerment, strength, stability and stature.
2) Offer women a safe space in which they can discuss social, economic and political rights and to realize their personal value and potential.
3) Build Women Skill Centers and offer job skills training for a sustainable future, including access to capital to help women create and manage sustainable micro-enterprises.
4) Build a Women’s Health Center.
5) Promote a Sponsorship Program to offer a one-to-one connection between sponsors in the United States and the deserving women in South Sudan whose lives are decimated by war and conflict..
6) Offer scholarships for girls and boys from South Sudan.
7) Promote women’s education.

The SSWEN Board of Directors

The SSWEN Board of Directors includes Southern Sudanese women from different regions and ethnic groups in Sudan, as well American advocates. These women boast a long list of organizational, non-profit, educational, medical, and advocacy experience, ranging from nursing to anthropology, and from volunteering to mothering, and they work for and have founded other non-profit organizations.

The Board of Directors includes Lilian Riziq, Lily Akol, Agnes Oswaha, Rosa Weet, Bonnie Lloyd, and Jennifer Erickson.

Bonnie Lloyd, Vice President

Bonnie Lloyd joined the SSWEN Board of Directors in October, 2006. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States. Over the last seven years, she has managed numerous volunteer groups. These groups have assisted in the resettlement of over 600 refugees from all over the world. These groups locate suitable housing, furnish apartments, assist in job acquisition and vocational training, ESL tutoring and driving lessons, facilitate doctor and immunization visits, register children in school, arrange DES and food bank appointments, and connect women with appropriate legal recourse for domestic violence.

Bonnie has a Bachelor of Sciences (B.S.) in Applied Management from Grand Canyon University and post-graduate credit in Project Management from the University of Denver in Colorado, United States.

Jennifer Erickson, Project Planner

Jennifer Erickson joined the SSWEN Board of Directors in April, 2006. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Psychology and English Literature in 1997 and is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oregon in the United States. From 2001-2002, she worked as a case manager with refugees for Lutheran Social Services in the Midwestern United States. From 1998-2000, she volunteered for a local women’s non-governmental organization, Medica Infoteka, in Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she coordinated qualitative and quantitative research with Romani (Gypsy) women. Jennifer is writing her dissertation about Bosnian and Southern Sudanese refugees and the institutions that serve them in the Midwest United States. She speaks Bosnian fluently and she hopes to learn (Juba) Arabic.