CAMFED - A charity that has given more than 5.5 million girls' an education

The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) tackles poverty and inequality towards women and girls in Africa. The charity provides support which allows women and young girls a standard education, along with lessons in leadership, social justice, climate action, and economic development.

CAMFED believes in: "Catalysing the power of the most vulnerable girls and young women to create the future they imagine: for themselves, for their communities, and for Africa."

Omega Mitepa, a member of CAMFED in Malawi, spoke about the impact of the organisation on girls' education and livelihood, stating: "Through our education, we have gone from being nobodies to becoming somebodies."

Ann Cotton OBE, a Welsh entrepreneur, is the founder of CAMFED. She committed to the non-profit organisation in 1993, after a research trip to Zimbabwe. Ann Cotton investigated why the number of young girls enrolled in schools in rural areas was so low. Ann found that poverty was the main factor that restricted young girls from education.

"In Zimbabwe what struck me was that I felt I hadn't understood colonisation in all its magnitude. The more I learned the angrier I got," Ann Cotton OBE revealed.

It has been 20 years since CAMFED won the International Aid and Development Charity of the Year award. CAMFED started by educating just 32 girls, Ann Cotton raised money through bake sales, to gift young people with scholarships in 1993.

Today, the international charity scheme has grown into an organisation that has sent more than 5.5 million children to schools across Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

There are currently more than 250,000 women leaders working with CAMFED.

Veronica, who received entrepreneurship training from CAMFED in Ghana, recently announced how her education has allowed her to support other women and young girls, who are being forced into marriages, in her community.

She said: "I received a lot of entrepreneurship training from CAMFED, such as bookkeeping, how to prepare financial statements, and how to manage a business. The profit I gain from my business, I will use it to provide weaving machines to the young women I train for the period of 3 years."

CAMFED's values include focusing on the girls as their clients, being a partner to communities, together with being transparent and accountable in their financial recourses. CAMFED not only supplies young girls with an education, but the organisation also provides the students with books, uniforms, and other essential items.

"You can't raise the aspirations of a child and then leave them hanging, poverty can't be solved by a project. It's solved by a relationship, collaboration, not coming in and making a new structure and putting our name over it and moving on," Ann Cotton OBE said.

The CAMFED motto is: "We get girls into school, help them to learn, support them to succeed, and unlock their power to lead."

The girls that have graduated, receive supplementary training and recourses to further their careers. The graduates often sponsor and mentor other children who enter the CAMFED program.

In 2021, CAMFED was awarded the 2021 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize. This prize is the world's largest annual humanitarian award, presented to a non-profit organisation to recognise their extraordinary contributions towards alleviating human suffering.

"CAMFED has revolutionised how girls' education is delivered, tapping into local expertise in a way that is sustainable and scalable," Peter Laugharn, President of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Foundation.

In 2015, during the week that the UN committed 17 Global Goals to improve health and gender equality, CAMFED met with Malala Yousafzai, to discuss strategies towards girls' education on a global scale.

Malala Yousafzai, education activist and the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate said: "We cannot hope to achieve peaceful and prosperous societies without unlocking the potential of millions of girls denied an education."

"Girls' secondary education is an investment in economic growth, a healthier workforce, and the peace and prosperity of our planet," she added.

In July 2023, Angeline Murimirwa and Lydia Wilbard, CAMFED CEO and Executive Director, will participate in the Women Deliver 2023 Conference to discuss the possibility of more schemes that tackle education for girls, with several partners.