Susan Burgess-Lent

Susan Burgess-Lent is a veteran international aid worker, Emmy Award–winning documentary editor, and author dedicated to amplifying voices often ignored.

Areas of Special Knowledge: Darfur/Sudan conflict, Women in Conflict Zones, East Africa’s Refugees. Her knowledge is based on deep field experience.

Susan served at the American Red Cross International Services during the Rwanda genocide and with DPDO, a Darfuri-led organization, where she helped establish the first women’s centers and supported continued operation of fifteen primary schools during the genocide in the mid-2000s.

In 2011, she founded Women’s Centers International, a nonprofit that helps community activists create resource hubs for women displaced by conflict and poverty — a model that has empowered thousands in East Africa

In addition to being a experienced speaker, she has publications that include:Trouble Ahead: Dangerous Missions with Desperate People, a nonfiction book (Amazon 2019); a new novel, When All the Girls Stopped Singing, set in Sudan (Current Words 2026); and over 150 essays on gender justice on her blogwww.SusanBurgessLent.com. She posts womanist commentary and tactics on Substack.

Sub-specialties:
Women and Poverty, Kenya women, Darfur women, Innovations in Services to women affected by conflict and poverty