“Kobbaya”: United in revolution and war

In December 2024, a phone call challenged my understanding of survival, displacement, and collective power. My cousin, displaced in Egypt for over a year due to the war in Sudan, had returned to Omdurman. This was not a passive homecoming or an act of duty. It was a political choice, a refusal to be permanently exiled by war, and a rejection of the idea that displacement is inevitable. She was back to care for her elderly parents. Still, she was also part of something larger—Kobbaya, a grassroots initiative operating out of her former school, now transformed into a sanctuary of hope and resistance. Once filled with the laughter and chatter of students, the school had been repurposed into a community hub, offering aid, medical care, and a model for collective survival.

Kobbaya—meaning cup in Sudanese dialect—epitomizes a principle that disrupts neoliberal narratives of survival: the redistribution of resources, however small, as a form of collective resistance. In a war economy where hyperinflation has turned essential goods into luxuries and survival into a privilege, Kobbaya refuses the logic of scarcity imposed by capital and conflict. A single cup passed from hand to hand is not charity. It is a radical assertion that survival is not an individual burden but a communal process.

Wanting to understand more, I asked my cousin to connect me with someone involved. Two days later, I spoke with Suad Mohsen Abdallah Diab, the 23-year-old Executive Director of Kobbaya. Her approach was clear from the outset: Kobbaya is not an NGO, a relief project, or a temporary intervention. It is a political praxis. She traced its origins to the 2019 Sudanese revolution, where she learned that real change is never handed down. Struggle does not wait for permission. When war broke out in 2023, Suad and others acted with what was available. “We started with just a single cup,” she said. “A cup of flour, a cup of lentils, a cup of water.” It was never just about food. “It was about proving that we could sustain each other without waiting for institutions to save us,” she explained. “War isolates people, and it makes them think survival is individual. We refuse that.” Two years into the revolution of 2018-2019, Suad understood the stakes. The youth had led the streets, organized resistance, and pushed for change. The war was another front in the same fight. Youth mobilized—volunteering, defending, and organizing. But the first gunshot in Omdurman sent waves of panic through the city.

Strikes disrupted everything. Electricity and phone networks collapsed. Displacement began. Fear spread. Inside Omdurman, Suad and her family remained. She knew the families around her who had nothing before the war and now had even less. Many relied on daily labor. When the war started, their work disappeared. The city shut down. They were trapped—not just by war, but by poverty, by a system that abandoned them long before the first bullet was fired. “We always knew that in crisis, the first to be abandoned were already struggling. We weren’t going to let that happen.”

What power looks like: The making of Kobbaya
On May 6, 2023, less than a month after the war began, Suad launched her first initiative, which later became Kobbaya. It started with a simple but urgent task: documenting the families who remained—who they were, why they stayed, and what they needed. Some could not leave because they had no money. Others had already been displaced before and refused to start over again. The war did not erase their existence, but it made them invisible to those in power. “We asked people why they stayed. Most of the answers weren’t about choice. They were about survival. Some had nowhere to go, no money, no means to move. Others had already been displaced before and refused to start over again. Leaving is not always an option.” Kobbaya did not emerge from institutions or external interventions. It was built on existing community organizing in Althawra 14, Omdurman, where youth had been supporting families through the neighborhood committee long before the war. Two weeks into the initiative, some of the committee members reached out to check if Suad had left the capital. She had not. She told them others had also stayed—families with no resources, those who could not afford to go, and those who refused to be uprooted again. They needed to act.

A meeting was called at the neighborhood club. Six people showed up—two young men and four young women. They had no funding or external support, only what they could gather from their homes. They collected whatever was available—food, basic supplies—and distributed them to families in need. From there, the work expanded. They documented needs, tracked shortages, and built a system to provide support. Kobbaya was not an aid project. It was not charity. It was built on the principle that survival is a collective act, not an individual burden. It grew not because of external funding but because people understood that their survival depended on each other. What began as six people with a few supplies became a structured network of mutual aid, proving that resilience is not about enduring crisis but about refusing to accept the conditions that create it.

Shops and pharmacies were closed. Essential goods were out of reach. They needed another way. They went door to door with a single cup, asking households to fill it with whatever they had: corn, lentils, water. No one had much, but everyone gave what they could. The act itself carried meaning. It refused the logic of scarcity. It rejected the idea that survival was an individual concern. “We were not collecting aid. We were redistributing what already existed. It was about proving that we are not helpless.” The people started calling them Shabab al-Kobbaya—the Youth of the Cup. The name stayed. It defined the work. A single cup passed from hand to hand, not as charity but as a challenge to the systems that make survival conditional. “The cup became a symbol. It was never empty because no one would go without as long as one person had something to give.”

By June 2023, gunfire and stray bullets increased, injuring people in the neighborhood. Medical services were inaccessible. The response was immediate. “We needed to act,” Suad said. First, they trained. “We took a first aid course under Red Crescent doctors. We needed to know how to stop bleeding, stabilize injuries, and keep people alive until treatment was possible.” Training was not theoretical—it was preparation for direct intervention. They mobilized volunteers, visiting homes to recruit doctors, pharmacists, medical students, and anyone with skills to contribute. “We didn’t just ask for help. We built a contact system. We documented names, addresses, and numbers to ensure rapid response.” With permission, they converted classrooms into medical units and developed a referral system for emergency cases. “We had to navigate roadblocks, ration fuel for transport, and ensure that supplies weren’t intercepted. It wasn’t just about providing aid—it was about finding ways to operate under a system that actively made survival difficult.” They secured permission and turned a school into an emergency medical room. “It was not a hospital. It was a functional space where injuries could be treated instead of left unattended.” Medicine was scarce, as pharmacies were closed. “We collected surplus medicine from households, stored and monitored by a pharmacist. Everything was redistributed for free.” The work expanded. “We organized a free health day at Fatima Al-Zahraa Girls’ School with lab testing and free medication.” Over 200 people arrived. “We couldn’t examine everyone in one day, so we organized another.” More volunteers joined. “We started with 21. Then 36. Now 130.” They built systems, assigned tasks, and documented every patient. Specialist doctors joined. “Hospitals were closed. We built our own clinics.” Economic sustainability was prioritized. “We organized three bazaars for productive families—soap makers, sweet vendors, and perfume producers.” Kobbaya is not an aid initiative. “We are building long-term infrastructure.”

What does it say about power when a 23-year-old woman, with no institutional backing, no foreign funding, and no resources beyond those shared by her community, can build a system of survival that outperforms the very structures meant to govern and protect? This is not an exception—it is proof that leadership, power, and revolution do not belong to institutions that claim to control survival. They belong to those who refuse to accept the conditions imposed on them.

The master’s tools will not save us
The global aid system operates as an extension of colonial governance, reinforcing structures of dependency that were historically institutionalized under colonial rule. Aid is not a neutral mechanism of relief; it actively produces and sustains hierarchies that determine access to survival. The humanitarian-industrial complex functions as a form of crisis management, maintaining control over populations through selective distribution while extracting labor and resources. Aid does not disrupt the colonial order; it extends its logic, ensuring that sovereignty remains deferred, and dependency remains structured into the global economy. Within this framework, Kobbaya represents a paradigmatic departure. It neither seeks integration into the existing system nor engages in its reform. Rather, it rejects the premise of aid as governance altogether. The model presented here is not an alternative humanitarian framework but a fundamental refusal of the dependency structures that define global aid economies. It does not rely on foreign funding or international organizations that impose external conditions on resource distribution. Instead, it mobilizes localized redistribution networks, ensuring the circulation of food, medicine, and other necessities from within Sudan. This redistribution is a material act of decolonization. The passing of a single cup from one household to another is not an act of charity; it is an intervention in neoliberal paradigms that render survival an individualized burden. A refusal to operate within economic and political structures reduces survival to an externally controlled condition. “When people give, they become part of the solution,” Suad states. Kobbaya does not merely critique the existing aid economy; it builds an autonomous system beyond its reach. The refusal to accept externally defined terms of survival directly rejects neocolonial control.

Dependency, far from being an inevitable outcome of crisis, is structurally produced. Its origins lie in colonial strategies of economic extraction and political control, which persist in neocolonial governance configurations. Dependency is not the byproduct of underdevelopment but its deliberate creation. Neocolonialism no longer relies on direct rule but on perpetuating economic and infrastructural precarity that ensures continued reliance on external institutions. Foreign aid serves as a central mechanism in this process, producing the conditions in which former colonies remain dependent on international actors for survival. Aid is structured to prevent the emergence of autonomous political and economic systems, ensuring that the Global South remains locked in a perpetual crisis that justifies continued intervention. The underlying logic of aid suggests that the Global South is inherently incapable of self-sufficiency and must be managed through external governance. Kobbaya fundamentally rejects this premise.vAmílcar Cabral’s analysis of colonialism and liberation provides a valuable framework for understanding Kobbaya’s position. Cabral contended that true freedom is realized only when communities reclaim control over their political and material conditions rather than depending on structures designed to sustain their subjugation.¹ Kobbaya’s rejection of humanitarian aid is not a rejection of mutual care but of the imposed frameworks that regulate access to survival. It does not attempt to reform failing state institutions or supplement international aid programs. Instead, it bypasses these structures entirely, demonstrating that self-organized communities do not require intermediaries to function. The rejection of aid is not an act of isolation; it is an act of self-determination. It removes control over resources from international governance structures and redistributes it through systems that operate outside the logic of foreign intervention.

Traditional humanitarian models do not eliminate crises; they manage them. Focusing on short-term relief, such models address immediate concerns—food, water, shelter—while leaving the structural conditions that produce vulnerability intact. Crisis management replaces systemic change. Kobbaya refuses to operate within this framework. It does not limit itself to distributing resources; it actively constructs alternative infrastructures—vocational training, community health programs, and long-term material support—that render external intervention unnecessary. The rejection of dependency is not a theoretical critique but a material practice. Decolonization does not happen through policy adjustments; it occurs through the construction of systems that refuse to comply with external governance.

Beyond the perpetuation of dependency, humanitarian aid also isolates people from collective survival networks. The aid economy is structured around the individual as a discrete management unit, reducing crisis to quantifiable metrics within financial cycles. This logic mirrors broader neoliberal economic policies, which depoliticize structural inequalities by framing people as passive recipients of externally determined aid. Kobbaya does not engage with this framework. It does not measure success in terms of efficiency or cost-effectiveness. Instead, it evaluates impact through redistribution and collective well-being. While international institutions impose eligibility criteria and usage restrictions on aid recipients, Kobbaya bypasses these regulatory mechanisms entirely. Redistribution is direct—no intermediaries, conditional approvals, or deference to policies designed to sustain rather than resolve crises.

The decision to remove control over survival from international institutions is a refusal to participate in a system not designed for liberation. Kobbaya is not an alternative model; it is a refusal to operate within models imposed from outside. The rejection of externally controlled aid structures does not mean isolation; it means refusing to be governed by systems that define African survival through crisis management rather than political autonomy. This rejection of dependency is not a novel innovation but a continuation of long-standing traditions of communal resource-sharing. Kobbaya does not seek to create a new model of aid; instead, it restores localized systems of mutual care that existed prior to their disruption by colonial and postcolonial governance. Redistribution is not a form of charity but a form of governance that does not require external validation. The assumption that communities must rely on external governance to determine who lives and who does not is a political construct. Kobbaya refuses this framework entirely.

Kobbaya’s challenge to humanitarianism extends to its disruption of hierarchical governance structures that determine who holds authority over survival. The prevailing narrative that positions women as passive victims of war erases the labor that sustains social and material survival in conditions of systemic collapse. Kobbaya does not seek recognition within patriarchal institutions, nor does it demand inclusion in governance structures that have historically marginalized women’s contributions. It does not negotiate for power; it moves beyond existing systems altogether. Women lead Kobbaya, not as a response to calls for representation but as a structural necessity. The labor of survival—food distribution, medical care, community organizing—is not supplementary to resistance; it is its foundation. This aligns with Audre Lorde’s assertion that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”² Kobbaya does not operate within patriarchal or colonial structures in an attempt to reform them. It demonstrates that these structures are not necessary. The assumption that power must be negotiated reinforces the idea that these systems are legitimate. Kobbaya proves that they are not.

The rejection of patriarchal and colonial governance structures is a rejection of the idea that power must be centralized. Kobbaya does not negotiate its right to exist; it asserts its existence by building systems without external approval. It does not appeal to international institutions for legitimacy. It does not seek validation from structures that define survival as contingent on external approval. It removes their authority entirely. “We are not waiting for war to end to build the future,” Suad asserts. “We are building it now.” Kobbaya is not an alternative humanitarian model; it rejects imposed frameworks altogether. It is not a response to crisis; it is a structural transformation designed to make crisis irrelevant. It does not accept the conditions imposed by war, capital, or international governance. It does not ask for permission to exist.

Conclusion
As a feminist and an academic, I do not see Kobbaya as just a grassroots initiative. It is a political statement, an act of defiance against the systems claiming authority over survival while sustaining the conditions that make survival precarious. It is a direct challenge to the logic of control—of who gets to live, who gets to receive aid, who gets to decide the terms of their existence. It is a rejection of the systems that turn survival into a privilege instead of a right. It proves resilience is not about enduring oppression but dismantling it. “We are not waiting for war to end to build the future,” Suad says. “We are building it now.”

Documenting this experience is more than an act of writing; these stories are not just narratives—they are testaments to the power of self-determination and the refusal to be erased. And so, I pass on Suad’s message in her own words:

"My message to all Sudanese abroad is that they carry a great responsibility in representing Sudan's true image, values, and ethics. They should reflect the strength of Sudanese solidarity and community, not the negative aspects such as the greed of some merchants. They have the power to showcase a beautiful image of Sudan and its deep sense of social cohesion.

As for those inside Sudan, they continue to demonstrate great awareness and patience despite the hardships of war. We pray for endurance and for the war to end soon.

Finally, I say: We will build the Sudan we dream of."

Listen to Suad's message in Arabic:

About the author:

Samah Khalaf Allah is a Sudanese human rights defender, feminist, and SRHR advocate. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Community Health Management from Ahfad University for Women 2013- Omdurman, Sudan, and a Master’s degree in Gender, Development, and Peace from the Regional Institute of Gender, Diversity Peace and Rights 2020- Omdurman, Sudan, currently, she’s part of the Junior Research Group at Africa multiple Cluster of Excellence as a Doctoral Researcher working on Political Transformation and Sexualities.

 

References

1. Cabral, Amílcar. Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
2. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 1984.