The Women of Umm Al-Sheikh: Voices of Resilience in the Sand Dunes – UMElsheikh Village – El Rahad Abu Takna – North Kordofan

In the heart of North Kordofan, in Al-Reid locality, lies the village of Umm Al-Sheikh—a small community perched on a hill, surrounded by endless sand dunes. Life here is harsh, yet the women of the village have become symbols of resilience, carrying their families through the toughest of times.

Although they live in the Gum Arabic belt and devote endless energy to cultivating, tapping, collecting, and cleaning Gum Arabic, survival is still a daily struggle. Every farming season, men sink deep into debt—borrowing for seeds, preparing the land, guarding the fields, and waiting anxiously for the harvest of millet, sesame, groundnuts, and hibiscus. By mid-August, exhaustion meets bankruptcy, and it is the women who step forward to keep life going. That month is bitterly named “Shahr Askut”—the month when men fall silent, and women’s earnings speak louder than hardship.

Behind the walls of their homes, every woman tends a jabraka, a small garden that blossoms with  okra, lentils, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, and maize. These modest plots are more than food; they are lifelines, ensuring that families do not go hungry when everything else fails.

But the women’s determination does not end there. Between January and April, after the main harvest, most of them turn to the wild fields in search of senna makki—a traditional medicinal plant. With calloused hands and hopeful hearts, each woman and girl gathers three to four sacks in a season. In 2017, a single sack fetched 1,000 Sudanese pounds, and by the season’s end, Ely Group for Medical Herbs would arrive to purchase the harvest directly from them.

Through gum arabic, through their jabrakas, and through the senna harvest, the women of Umm Al-Sheikh weave threads of survival and dignity. Their story is not only one of endurance but also of quiet power—of women who refuse to be broken by the desert winds and the cycles of debt, carrying their families forward when all else seems lost.

The story of Umm Al-Sheikh’s women carries lessons far beyond the village. Their strength in the face of debt, drought, and desert winds shows how women are the hidden backbone of rural life.

While men are often overwhelmed by the heavy costs of agriculture, it is women who sustain households—through gum arabic, through their jabrakas, and through the harvest of wild medicinal plants.

They are not only providers of food and income but also guardians of knowledge, resilience, and adaptation. Their gardens strengthen food security, their work with gum arabic sustains the local economy, and their collection of senna plants connects their village to global markets.

In their quiet determination, the women of Umm Al-Sheikh remind us that true development cannot ignore women’s labor, women’s wisdom, or women’s resilience. Empowering them is not an act of charity but a necessity for the survival and dignity of entire communities.