Khartoum: Hossam Al-Din Mirghani
Her whitish complexion seems to be mildly mingled with an attractive grainy tan maybe gained from the sun rays and from the blue waters of the Nile. Huda Abdul Hameed through all the fishing history in the Sudan, is assumed to be the only woman who spreads fishing nets in the Nile, in order to gain her livelihood from their outcome.
A woman who is close to sixty, but still maintains an impressive beauty and strong determination to navigate through the swirl of the Nile to obtains her permissible livelihood to support her family .
She inherited her light colored complexion from her father whose roots belongs to Egypt as he worked, before his death, within the Egyptian Irrigation Commission in the Sudan.
Other inheritance; she gained her hard determination from the people of Mugran Al-Neelain and Jabal Al-Awliya reservoir inhabitants , who lived among them as a devoted Sudanese individual since her birth in 1951 . She struggled her way in the field of fishing from a locally made boat until she reached the stage of an Entrepreneurship and manufacturer in the field of fishing and fish trade.
Hoda Abdul Hameed Khalil has practiced fishing with nets and hooks since she opened her eyes as a nile bank inhabitant . The Nile closely neighbored her residence in Jabal Al-Awliya reservoir, south of Khartoum, where she was born in 1951.
She did not pay attention to the negative remarks of those who denounced her career or who underrated it as fisherwoman , and evolved from fishing with hooks and nets to buying her own boats and turned into a prominent businesswoman in the fish and fish market and was honored by the state more than once due to her effort in the field of fishing and her establishment of a manufacturing complex under the name of Al Huda Foundation Fish products, which has become a major distributor of fish in Khartoum and the White Nile states.
The fishermen called her ” Tilapia- fish Lady “, which is one of the popular Nile fish. Huda’s fridges never get short of these species of fish throughout the year even when it is not the season. She also specialized in developing salted fish from “cat- fish” ,“Nile Sardines” and Tilapia fish.
Her story started with the Nile since she was six years old, when she began to learn to fish with simple snares methods and after she got married in the early 1970s, she persuaded her husband to work with in fishing. In 1989 she worked independently.
Now She still runs her work by herself. She travels along the Nile quite alone up to the South Sudan state’s borders on trips that extend to two weeks on deck of one of her wooden boat. She was never deterred by the fishermen’s legends about Nile predators and fairies. She was attacked several times by crocodiles and hippopotamuses. She met that with steadfastness and courage until survival.
“Huda” won the Women’s Creativity Award in Beijing in 2005 amid 120 competitors from all over the world. She also won the Women’s Creativity Scarf in the countryside. Its prize amounted to 10 thousand dollars which she invested in building a resort in Jebel Al-Awliya, which is still the most famous in south of Khartoum countryside.
During her ongoing career, she received regional awards from Dubai in the field of feminist business, as well as numerous certificates of appreciation in Sudan ; from the Jabal Al Barkal Cultural Festival in 2011, the Association of Women Working in Sudan in 2005 and the fourth fishing festival 2011.
