Concordis

Latest Update – June 2026

My name is Acho Gerald. I’m the Sudan Country Manager for Concordis in Sudan. I lead the team of peacebuilders who work from our base in Nyala, South Darfur. I am writing to ask you to help us fund a peacebuilding process that will create profound change for communities on the border between Sudan and Chad, in an area called Um Dukhun. We have been asked to help with activities that sit outside our funded programme, but it is a request we need to take up to be true to our promise: to walk with communities for as long as it takes to build sustainable peace.

(Photo: Acho listens to the experiences of women in Darfur.)

For generations, communities on both sides of the Sudan-Chad border have traded together, intermarried, and shared grazing lands and markets. Today, conflict, insecurity, and the spread of weapons are placing these relationships under increasing strain.What happens in Um Dukhun affects communities across both Sudan and Chad. When tensions rise, trade suffers, migration routes close, and families lose important sources of income and security.We have been asked by the Prince of Salamat (one of the major tribes in the region) to work with local leaders to establish a functioning border. We will bring the right people together and hold the space while they talk.My team, and the volunteers and local leaders they support, are at the forefront of this work. Concordis’ team in Chad are working on the other side of the border. These peacebuilders are incredible, courageous people, all of them.Before planning this process, my team met with 193 community leaders, women, youth, traditional authorities, and local officials. Their message was clear: dialogue is needed, but agreements must be implemented if they are to make a difference. Peace conferences are the measurable part, attractive to funders. However, it’s what happens next which will be so impactful on the wider area, and for that we have no funding.That part is the follow-through: holding people accountable, disseminating the decisions taken, putting systems in place. Getting this right is the key to building lasting, sustainable peace and real change.Our word must be our bond. When we say to people who have asked us for help, we will stay with you as you rebuild trust and livelihoods, we need to stay. We can’t take them so far and then abandon them. That is not what we do. When I visited Um Dukhun last year, what stayed with me was not only the hardship people were facing, but their determination to protect relationships that have existed across this border for generations. Again and again, community leaders told us they wanted practical solutions that would allow their children to live in peace, trade safely, and move freely across the border.The people of Um Dukhun do not need outsiders to tell them what peace looks like. They already know. What they need is support to turn local agreements into lasting change. There is no point in waiting for the generals to stop the fighting in Sudan before we start working to make things better. We need to get involved now. Your support of this work means we do not abandon the local people and systems that hold peace together. They have lost so much in these years of conflict, they can’t lose their chance at peace. This work costs £30,000. Wonderful supporters have already primed the pump. The work will start after the rainy season, in October, but we want to know we can complete before we start. We need this money in place by the end of July. Would you help us see it through? DONATE HERE Click here to learn more about what’s happening in Um Dukhun.Thank you, from all of us.Acho GeraldSudan Country ManagerConcordis International

Previous Update from Concordis (April 2026)

At the end of a week which saw the third anniversary of the outbreak of war in Sudan, I am writing to ask you to support our efforts to build peace. How does a small peacebuilding charity make a difference in a horrendously entrenched war? By staying at our post, throughout the war. By gaining a reputation for being trustworthy and effective. And making life tangibly better for those we’re here to serve. Despite the brutality of the fighting, the Concordis’ staff team and our network of 325 local peacebuilders continue to prevent local conflicts from escalating. Our work enables food to be grown, harvested and transported safely to market, so people do not starve. We help Sudanese people find greater resilience to life’s challenges, in the face of a relentless war. I was in a meeting this week with Yvette Cooper, British Foreign Secretary. She said, “It increases our faith in the best of humanity, when we see how people respond to the worst of humanity.” This is our experience too. Since the start of the war, this is what we see happening on the ground: 1. Ethnic tensions that have existed for years are being weaponised. Local conflicts are provoked for military and political gain, to create more unrest. But Concordis’ network of community peacebuilders intervenes fast when conflict arises, preventing violence between different groups from escalating. Read more, click here. 2. Hunger is being used as a weapon of war, in an attempt to starve people into submission. Concordis’ peacebuilders negotiate practical and sustainable local peace agreements. Communities agree who can plant crops in each place, where cattle can find grazing, and how harvests can be taken peacefully to market. It means people have access to affordable food in the places we work. Read more, click here. 3. Roads are blocked and markets are targeted by bombs and armed groups, threatening livelihoods and the availability of food for families. Concordis’ staff are successfully negotiating the reopening of roads to transport food. These agreements have strict conditions to prevent movement of armed groups along the same roads. We’ve seen markets reopen after episodes of violence, but it doesn’t stop there. We support and train peace committees and chambers of commerce, made up of people from all sides of the conflict. They take responsibility for security in the market and manage intercommunity tensions before they escalate. By keeping markets open, relatively safe and stocked with food for trade between the different communities, we are supporting the long and difficult process of restoring mutual trust and cooperation. Read more, click here. This work is so important. The war has been devastating, but it could have been so much worse. It is not overstating the case to say peacebuilding is preventing violence from escalating to genocide, and the weaponizing of hunger from becoming widespread famine. Thank you for standing with us in remembering the people of Sudan. The end of this war may still be a fair way off, but there’s even more we can do, and indeed have been invited to do. Could you help us respond to these needs, by making a donation to Concordis today? To give your support to this essential work, please click here. Thank you.

PS. Click here to listen to one of our most passionate peacebuilders: Timea Szarkova, Concordis Country Manager for Chad and Cameroon, chats to me about women’s role in peacebuilding and the complexities behind real, lasting peace.

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