Fatima Mohamed Al Hassan, a tireless champion of Darfur's culture and heritage. Fatima worked for many years as a teacher, and when she retired she founded the Darfur Women's Museum in her home in Nyala, the capital of Sudan's South Darfur state, in 1985.

Fatima has devoted her life to protecting, studying and celebrating the region's rich cultural heritage, with a particular focus on the role of women and the importance of engaging young people with their heritage, history and culture. First inspired by her mother to safeguard and share Darfur’s important heritage, many of her mother’s personal items formed the museum’s initial collection. The museum is now home to over 4000 items, including varied archaeological items from all over Sudan, along with other valuable pieces of traditional heritage and history. These items have been carefully curated and displayed to tell many different stories. Despite decades of conflict and marginalisation, Darfur is bursting with vitality; it is home to more than 100 distinct tribes, each with their own art, customs and traditions. 

Sudan Memory collaborated with Fatima since 2020 to record her collection and to assist with some essential repairs to her museum, so that her museum collection and her story could be preserved and shared with Sudan and the wider world. You can find out more about Fatima’s story in a dedicated film in the ‘Stories’ section of this website.

Content from this collection will be available soon.