Albany’s work in Sudan
Albany’s team of communication professionals have been promoting peace in Sudan since 2006. They have launched and produced newspapers; radio programmes (in local unwritten languages), street theatre, concerts, and have entertained and informed some of the thousands of children in IDP camps with puppet shows.
Employing over 25 experienced consultants (many of whom are local Sudanese) Albany’s activities in Sudan have covered public information, strategic communications, advocacy, conference and workshop facilitation. Clients have included the UK, Canadian and Dutch governments, the European and African Unions and the United Nations.
Working for UNAMID (previously AMIS):
Originally, the main objective was to ensure the widest possible knowledge and understanding of the Darfur Peace Agreement across the general population of Darfur and other key stakeholders. This objective was later broadened to encompass communication about the peace process generally.
To meet these goals, Albany designed a number of products and programs, many listed above. Albany has also used traditional local communication methods, including direct engagement with tribal and local community leaders as cultural conduits. Perhaps most notable is the cultural festival in Darfur. The Afia Darfur arts and music festival was developed to promote a culture of peace and reconciliation in co-operation with AMIS and the UN. The festival (in 2007 running under the banner ‘Children of Darfur, peace’) saw over 100 of Sudan’s leading artists and musicians coming together to promote a message of reconciliation, dialogue and education to an approximate combined audience total of 200,000. Events included musical concerts, workshops, children’s programmes, sports days and tournaments, stage and street theatre, comedy shows and workshops. Good media coverage of the festival was provided by the local radio and television stations, ensuring that it reached a broader audience. The final evening’s concert in El Fasher was also broadcast freely via satellite both directly to the Sudanese diaspora in Europe and the Middle East, and throughout Sudan itself; and made available for other broadcasters to relay or record for free. These efforts have led to the establishment of a Sudanese NGO, staffed and run by locals, that aims to continue these activities after Albany’s project has ended—a real move toward the sustainability that is almost always an overarching project goal.
Albany has worked to increase AMIS’s capacity to reach out to stakeholders, including by formulating and training staff on internal and external communications strategies and procedures and relations with the press and international community. As part of this process, Albany organised and led a series of retreats that brought together key stakeholders such as the African Union, the United Nations, the Government of Sudan, and important embassies to discuss and plan for coordination and to develop messages for the peace process. Most significantly, the most recent retreat brought to the table the various movements to discuss how negotiations should go forward, thus contributing directly to the peace process.
Albany now has the same objectives with UNAMID as it did for its work with the AMIS, but with an eye to transitioning its public information responsibilities to the UN mission’s Public Information department over time. The UN has considered Albany’s involvement to be critical to the success of its mission and maintaining continuity between the AMIS and UNAMID during this important transitional period.
Click here for our AMIS Towards peace in Darfur 2004-2007 video.
Working for the European Commission to Sudan
Albany also won a competitive tender issued by the EC to organise an EC Delegation Conference for human rights NGOs running programs in Darfur. The conference hosted over 100 local and international participants in Khartoum over three days in December 2007. Albany made all arrangements for the event, including regarding facilitators and key note speakers.
Videos:
-
The Afia Darfur festival film by Jo Ensum. This is not a professional production but a personal take on the cultural festival by an Albany consultant
Resources:
-
Albany Associates has a large image bank of photographs of Darfur. Please respect copyright and contact the administrator enquiries@albanyassociates.com if you would like to use them for your project.
-
A showcase of images from the Afia Darfur festival on the BBC website.
-
A short film on the work of AMIS in Sudan-(13 mins), english, Arabic, French
-
Afia Darfur NGO - www.afia-darfur.net
-
Afia Sudan online www.afiasudan.org
Albany’s Sudan Clients:
- United Kingdom, Stabilisation Unit
- Netherlands, Ministry of International Development and Cooperation
- Government of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade
- European Commission, Sudan
- African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS)
- The United Nations – Africa Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)
Latest News On Albany in Sudan
Equestrian Festival in South Darur
As part of its public information project in Sudan funded by the UK, Dutch and Canadian governments, Albany Associates provided funding and assistance to the Equestrian Festival, held in Ad Du'ayn, South Darfur state from 30 May to 2 June 2008. The festival provided a traditional platform for tribal leaders to come together to engage in reconciliation and mediation, drawn by their love of horses and racing. Participants came from a broad spectrum of Darfur’s Arab and African tribes, including senior leaders from the Rizeigat, Fur, Fellata and Zaghawa tribes, and were joined by leading activists, scholars and cultural figures from Khartoum and other regions of Sudan.
Albany worked closely in partnership with the Governance Bureau (GB), the Sudanese NGO which organised the festival. In addition to assisting with the planning and operational preparations, Albany primarily acted as the interface with the international community, using the broad range of its contacts with the AU, UN and donors to secure additional funding, facilitate interest in and participation by international community representatives, and above all to promote the work of national NGOs and actors in giving voice to civil society in the peace process.
Images of the Festival on BBC (Albany photography Stuart Price)
Washington Post article
Albany attend memorial for Peace keepers killed in Darfur
On 29 May 2008, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur commemorated the 60th anniversary of UN Peacekeeping in a ceremony honouring the 61 African Union peacekeepers killed in Darfur in the line of duty.
Albany Associates, supported by DFID and the government of the Netherlands, assisted the AU in the construction and dedication of a memorial to the fallen peacekeepers.Ambassador Mahmoud Kane, head of the AU's Liaision Office in Sudan, unveiled the memorial and read a message from Jean Ping, the AU Commission Chairperson. Mr Ping recalled the tragic loss of the AU peacekeepers and thanked troop contributing countries for their support of the mission. "We thank UNAMID and Albany Associates, our Information Consultants, for facilitating this dignified sign of commemoration for our fallen soldiers," he said. After the event, there was a press conference in which the UNAMID senior leadership briefed journalists on the situation in Darfur and took questions.
Albany Associates lead Africa Day celebrations with photo exhibition in Sudanese capital
To celebrate Africa Day on 25 May, Albany Associates held a photo exhibition of the African Union Mission in the Sudan at a reception in the Sudanese capital on 26 May.
A selection of photographs taken by Albany’s photographer Stuart Price documenting the African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) on the ground in Darfur during the last six months of the Mission’s mandate as it prepared to hand over authority to the joint United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) on 31December 2007, were displayed alongside a video also produced by Albany for the African Union. Speaking at the event to mark Africa Day, which was attended by a host of African diplomats and Ambassadors in Khartoum, Ambassador Mahmoud Kane, Head of the African Union’s Liaison Office in the Sudan said: “Standing here in 2008, it is extraordinary to remember that our noble story together began in Addis Ababa almost half a century ago - in 1963 - when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was born.”
Ambassador Kane added that Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie’s famous words at that event were: may this convention last 1,000 years. “When you think how far we have already travelled on the road to African unity, when you see how far the African Union has come in that time, how strong it is today, I see no reason why the African Union shouldn’t last 1,000 years, perhaps much longer.” The African Union has been in Darfur since 2004, beginning its Mission with just several hundred people, yet today it stands proudly shoulder to shoulder with the UN in Darfur in the form of the joint UNAMID force of 10,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, Amb. Kane added.
Albany works with New York Café to raise books for Darfur
Doma café and art gallery in New York has teamed up with Albany Associates to support the Darfur Library Project by collecting donations of books. For more information contact Doma Cafe & Gallery, 17 Perry St, New York, NY 10014, tel: + 1 (212) 929-4339.materials that may offend cultural sensibilities. It is also important to include letters in your books, to form penpal relationships. To read the penpal guidelines, click here. They can even arrange pick-up if your part of an organization with at least 100 books to donate. For more information and to donate, please contact Evelyn from Doma: polesny@verizon.net.
Photography Exhibition on African Union Mission: 25 Mar 2008
A photographic exhibit entitled “The African Union in Darfur” ran in the South Gallery of the General Assembly Visitors’ Lobby during March 2008. The exhibition featured a collection of photographs highlighting the work of the African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) to contain the violence and improve security in Darfur during its three-and-a-half-year presence (April 2004 to December 2007). Many of the pictures were shot by Stuart Price, a photographer working for Albany Associates in Darfur.
The exhibition was prepared by Albany Associates and sponsored by the Peace and Security Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information.
It is hoped that the exhibition will shortly be on show in the UK.