Report launch: These young women are a powerful new force for development
Today, we’re thrilled to launch a new report on the CAMFED Association, CAMA, and how it is becoming a powerful new force for development.
This powerful movement of young women [CAMA] is a passionate, innovative, challenging and unstoppable force. They, who were the most disadvantaged, are now the leaders of change.
Diana Good, Specialist Adviser to the International Development Committee of the UK Parliament
The report is written by Diana Good, Specialist Adviser to the International Development Committee of the UK Parliament and former Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact.
Diana was one of the original authors of the seminal report on CAMFED’s governance model published ten years ago by Linklaters, ‘Accounting to the Girl’. Ten years on this new report, also supported by Linklaters, illuminates how this governance model has nurtured the emergence of the CAMFED Association (CAMA).
Now – as educated, empowered young women, and with partners such as The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust behind them – CAMFED Association members are escalating support to vulnerable children and transforming their communities.
They include young women leaders like Michelle in Zimbabwe, who has started her own business and is now supporting five other children in her community to go to school, and Rose in Malawi who, with the backing of local authorities, is taking people to court over forced child marriage.
Founding the CAMFED Association (CAMA) members Fiona Mavhinga and Angie Murimirwa celebrate a new force for development
22-year-old CAMFED Association (CAMA) leader Rose from Malawi, a role model to vulnerable girls, works to end child marriage by bringing communities together. “They now understand the importance of girls’ education”. Read Rose’s story here.
22-year-old CAMFED Association (CAMA) leader Rose from Malawi, a role model to vulnerable girls, works to end child marriage by bringing communities together. “They now understand the importance of girls’ education”. Read Rose’s story here.
Rose and her CAMFED Association sisters galvanize their communities in the fight against child marriage, bringing together students with parents, teachers and local leaders.
As role models and living proof of the power of education, they facilitate discussions on the importance of girls’ education, and the physical and psycho-social consequences of early pregnancy and early marriage.
Rose has already worked to annul seven child marriages, with the girls returning to school and perpetrators being brought to justice.
CAMFED Association members understand the power of inclusion. With the motto “Together we can” these young women will stop at nothing as they demonstrate the incredible returns of educating the most marginalized children.
Read Diana Good’s report CAMA: A powerful new force for development – How a pan-African movement of young women leaders is unleashing the extraordinary potential of girls’ education