"Emergency Response Rooms – Between Mutual Aid and International Humanitarian Aid" herunterladen als:
Emergency Response Rooms – Between Mutual Aid and International Humanitarian Aid
Date of the event
Mittwoch, 26 August 2026
Time of the event
04:00 pm – 08:30 pm
Place of the event
Berlin
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About the event
The Sudanese model of Emergency Response Rooms is a network of grassroots community organisations which, during the current war in Sudan, has taken on key tasks relating to civilian support, including food distribution, medical aid and evacuations.
Drawing on this example, the event will explore and discuss different perspectives on humanitarian aid. It combines a political and analytical assessment of the humanitarian situation in Sudan with a broader debate on the structure of international aid systems. In particular, it will offer a multifaceted analysis of traditional approaches to humanitarian aid and focus specifically on the potential and challenges of solidarity-based approaches.
Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) serve here as a point of departure for an in-depth examination of community-based and solidarity-oriented forms of support structures. During the event – particularly in light of current geopolitical developments – discourses on humanitarian aid and the media presence of international aid organisations will be contextualised, whilst tensions and critical perspectives on these issues will be examined and discussed.
In addition to presenting the ERR as an example of community-based support structures, the following questions will be addressed and explored collectively over the course of the evening:
What prospects do community-based support structures, such as those of the ERR, open up with regard to transnational practices of solidarity?
How do such networks relate to institutionalised humanitarian aid?
To what extent can dominant media and political framings of humanitarian aid contribute to the depoliticisation of conflicts, wars and state violence, by pushing structural and geopolitical accountabilities into the background in favour of individualised narratives of need and powerlessness?
What is the relationality between power, solidarity and empathy interact in this context?
Radwa Khaled Ibrahim
Radwa Khaled Ibrahim is a consultant on critical aid at the aid and human rights organisation “medico international”, as well as a research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt; her research focuses on the Global South, with particular attention to gender relations. Amid increasingly serious global upheavals, Radwa comments on current events through critical commentary and/or analysis on her page on the medico blog or in print and audio media. Her most recent contributions have focused primarily on the situation in Gaza, the protests in Kenya, and the political implications of the de facto abolition of USAID and the shifts in German foreign and development policy.
Sara Abbas
Sara Abbas is a researcher of gender, the state, and social movements, with a focus on Sudan. Since April 2023, she has focused on supporting feminist groups and mutual aid networks to resource themselves in their fight against the war and for the survival of their communities. Her writing on Sudan over the past years includes a contribution to "Diversity on Common Ground: Ten Perspectives on Modern Feminism", and the essay "The Weight of Feelings: Khartoum's Revolutionary Moment". Sara is a fellow of Decolonize Now! co-working on a project documenting feminist narrative against the war, and how they generate, sustain, and renew themselves in the face of catastrophic, orchestrated violence.
Samah Khalaf Allah
Samah Khalaf Allah is a Sudanese human rights activist who conducts research and carries out work on gender justice and sexual and reproductive health. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Community Health Management from Ahfad University for Women (2013) in Omdurman, Sudan, and a Master’s degree in Gender, Development and Peace from the Regional Institute of Gender, Diversity, Peace and Rights (2020) in Omdurman, Sudan. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Bayreuth.
Ruham Hawash
Ruham Hawash is an activist and community organiser within social movements in Palestine, Syria and beyond. Hawash’s educational background includes a BSc in Economics, an MSc in Finance and an MA in Peace and Security. Since August 2025, Hawash has been working in the International Crimes and Legal Accountability programme at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), where she is committed to advancing human rights principles and contributing to transitional justice in and for Syria.
Nerges Azizi
Dr. Nerges Azizi completed her PhD in Law at Birkbeck, University of London. In her research, she analyses the current conjuncture of migrants' rights struggles by focusing on the role of legal interventions against pushbacks in the Mediterranean. She is a legal advisor in the International Crimes and Accountability program at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and serves as Executive Director of the Afghanistan Research Hub at Humboldt University Berlin. Previously, she worked as a legal advisor with the Border Justice program at ECCHR, as a Carlo Schmid Fellow at the Ethics Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, and as a lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin and Philipps-Universität Marburg, among others.
Luna Ali
Luna Ali studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice in Hildesheim, as well as Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. She has worked as a freelance performer and writer at theatres in Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Hanover and Berlin. In 2024, her debut novel *Da waren Tage* was published by S. Fischer Verlag; it explores memories of the Syrian Revolution. She has been involved with Watch the Med — Alarmphone and currently works for Sea-Watch.
Information about the event
Event address:
Publix
Hermannstraße 90
12051 Berlin
Organizer:
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/Federal Agency for Civic Education
Directions:
U8, S41, S42, S46 und S47 Hermannstraße. Please find further information on how to reach the venue Externer Link: here.
Participation remark:
The event will be held in English. Simultaneous interpretation into German will be provided.
The venue is accessible. An accessible toilet is available.