African girls' education movement is being highlighted as ‘heroic’ 2023 Holiday Impact Prize winner, and a beneficiary nonprofit of The New York Times Communities Fund
New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof honored CAMFED with his Holiday Impact Prize for the second time since the initiative’s launch in 2019. CAMFED was previously featured as the 2020 Grand Prize Winner and is now being welcomed back as part of a special readers’ favorite edition in 2023. For the first time ever, Holiday Impact Prize winners will also be included in the New York Times Communities Fund, with CAMFED featured as one of the charities for this year’s appeal.
Female education can change the course of our world. It’s the key that CAMFED uses to unlock the potential of young women and the communities they belong to. As CAMFED empowers girls, these young women, in turn, become the architects of change in their nations. Girls’ education stands as one of the most high-impact investments we can make today.
Nicholas Kristof, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist
Nicholas (Nick) Kristof and CAMFED’s CEO Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa first met in New York in 2015 after Nick and his wife Sheryl Wu Dunn told Angie’s story in their 2009 book Half the Sky when they started following the trajectory of young women supported by CAMFED. Angie, whose family did not have the means to send her to high school, has risen through the ranks to lead the organization that partnered with her community to make her education possible. Angie emphasizes that no gift is too small. The lack of something as simple as a pen or a notebook can keep a girl out of school. But once she gets that chance, as Nick and Angie discuss in this video, she’ll pay it forward, supporting (on average) three more girls to go to school. This Multiplier Effect drives scale and sustainability.
Read Nick's column in the New York TimesWhatever we can all do in this time, in this season, while we are still breathing - to be able to help one more girl, two more girls, to just get that chance - it's phenomenal. We'll make every dollar, every cent, given to CAMFED count.Angie Murimirwa, CEO of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education
95% of girls from disadvantaged communities in rural Africa never complete secondary school — and their exclusion from education is a driving force of poverty and injustice. Girls face a complex web of financial and social challenges — from the cost of school fees, uniforms and transportation to the fact that rural schools are often under-resourced and unable to respond to girls’ specific needs, including the poverty-related pressure to marry at a young age.
Even girls who manage to beat the odds and complete their schooling face an abyss when they graduate – a lack of jobs, opportunities, and female role models.
CAMFED has developed a proven solution that helps girls to thrive in school, and equips them with the skills and community support they need to succeed after graduation. And it all starts with supporting a girl to go to school:
DonateIt’s her right, and it unlocks her power to determine who she will become and what she will do with her life.
It has been proven time and again to advance health, gender equality, social justice, economic development, and even our ability to tackle climate change.
Naomi, who leads the Zambia chapter of the CAMFED Association – our powerful sisterhood of leaders educated with CAMFED support – is a great example of the Multiplier Effect of educating a girl through CAMFED.
CAMFED gave her the financial support she needed to go to secondary school. When she graduated, she joined the Association and trained as a Learner Guide, mentoring children at her local school. In exchange for volunteering, she got an interest-free loan from CAMFED and set up a home furnishings business. And now, Naomi supports her own family and the education of 5 other girls and trains recent graduates in climate-smart farming! Watch the film to discover more.
Naomi is not alone:
Since 2009, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has written an annual “holiday gift guide” column to bridge a philanthropic gap: readers who wanted to help but didn’t know how, and heroic individuals and organizations who desperately needed resources but were off donors’ radar. In 2020, Nick selected CAMFED as his Grand Prize Winner, and this year he has chosen to welcome back CAMFED and two other previous winners as part of a special readers’ favorite edition.
2023 Prize winners are also being supported by The New York Times Communities Fund, building on a 112-year legacy of connecting readers with causes that matter to them.
In his article about the threat educated girls pose to terrorists like Boko Haram, Nick recounts Angeline’s story and asks readers to stick it to extremists by educating girls.
Nick reports on the Nigerian girls still missing after Boko Haram’s kidnapping and the generous response of New York Times readers in donating to CAMFED as a result of his previous article.
Nick posted on his Instagram when he and CAMFED’s Angie Murimirwa met up in New York City in 2015, as the UN announced the global Sustainable Development Goals and Angie advocated for girls’ education alongside Malala.
In 2020, Nicholas Kristof selected CAMFED as the Grand Prize Winner of his Holiday Impact Prize, highlighting the “perpetual motion machine” of our model.
Nick bears painful witness to children needlessly dying, highlighting how the COVID-19 pandemic rolled back decades of progress, and quoting CAMFED’s Angie Murimirwa among other experts.
Nick mentions CAMFED in a more hopeful piece, highlighting the incredible gains that have been made around the world in education, health and well-being, as he describes the difference this is making to women and children in places like Sierra Leone.
Michelle Brown $16.1
Justin Coffey $474
Jenifer Fabian $10.9
Laurence Pearl $185
Nicole Duncan $209
The LockPhantoms $253
Rachel Epstein $180
Alexandra Ornston $500
Shanice Lodge $141
Deb Williams $10.9
Kendra Cullen $158
Maggie Cutkosky $106
David Pederson $79.2
Lauren Frankel $52.9
David Shilling $106
When she thrives, we all thrive
Together this giving season, we can make a difference that ripples outward to benefit everyone.
