Many women fleeing conflict in Sudan arrive in South Sudan with nothing. Sometimes all they have are the clothes they are wearing.

Often they lack even the basic necessities of personal hygiene care.

“When their period comes, some women don’t use anything,” says 27-year-old Amou, a volunteer with the South Sudan Red Cross.

“Or they use pieces of cloth as a sanitary pad, which can lead to infections. They tell us: ‘If I buy sanitary pads, my children don’t have anything to eat."

To address this urgent need, the South Sudan Red Cross distributes dignity kits to women and girls. Each kit contains sanitary pads, underwear, soap, a towel, and a flashlight with batteries.

“The flashlight is very important,” Amou explains. “It helps women feel safer at night when they need to go to the toilet.”

Providing these items means women no longer have to choose between their own dignity and feeding their families.

In addition to distributing dignity kits, Amou raises general awareness in the community about hygiene and sanitation.

“I show families how to build a toilet,” she says. “If waste is left outside, people can get diarrhoea."

"Some people drink unsafe water from the Nile, which can cause disease outbreaks. When the rains come, the situation becomes even more difficult.”

It was raining heavily that morning they fled; it wasn’t just the sky that was crying — but Jamila Begum’s heart was too.

“It was raining so hard,” she remembers, “as if the clouds were feeling our pain.”

40-year-old Jamila Begum still recalls the fear, and heartbreak of that day, when she and her husband, along with three young sons, fled their country, Myanmar, due to violence.

When Jamila and her family arrived in Bangladesh, they found themselves in a crowded, noisy informal settlement, full of thousands of strangers from the same land.

“I didn’t know where to go, what to eat, or how to live.”

Her husband was badly injured while escaping. He could not move properly, and so, Jamila became the only person who was strong enough to take care of the family.

“I was so scared, but I had no choice. I had to be strong for my children.”

Long days turned into longer months. At the beginning, life in the displacement camps of Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar was riddled with uncertainties — no durable shelters, runny, muddy pathways, no safe water to drink, no safe bathrooms and endless waiting for one.

Lost and alone

One afternoon, while sitting outside her shelter, Jamila heard a few women talking with camp volunteers who had come to visit their block.

They were discussing a nearby centre; a place where women could learn new skills like sewing, embroidery, and fishing net-making.

“I felt very shy,” Jamila recalls. “I have never gone out alone in this new country. I didn’t even know how to talk to the volunteers.”

But something inside urged me to go and see.

“There were women like me, scared, tired, but smiling while learning something new. I felt warmth there.”

She saw sewing machines, colorful threads, and women stitching together with laughter. It was not just a learning space, it was a safe space. Women are chatting by themselves; and there were also good toilet facilities for women, with privacy.

Stitching her life back together

And so Jamila Begum joined a sewing course months after crossing the border. “When I touched the fabric and started to sew, I felt like I was stitching my life back together.”

Not long after, Jamila became a Red Crescent volunteer and along with sewing, she built the capacity of the community through discussions and awareness sessions on child marriage, trafficking, positive parenting, safety and gender-based violence.

“I had never heard about these things before,” she admits. “I learned that we, as women, also have rights, and we can support each other.”

As a volunteer in the camps, she is the voice of the community to Identify protection cases and refer those cases to the respective actors through referral pathway.