Yidan Prize for Education Development awarded to CAMFED

NewsPublished on: Sep 23 2020

Today the Yidan Prize Foundation, a global philanthropic educational foundation inspiring future progress and change in education, named Angeline Murimirwa, CAMFED’s Executive Director – Africa, and Lucy Lake, CAMFED’s Chief Executive Officer, as 2020 laureates of the Yidan Prize for Education Development, the world’s largest prize in education.

Our Co-executives accepted the award on behalf of CAMFED, as the first team to be granted the Yidan Prize since its inception in 2017. The Prize represents a profound endorsement of CAMFED’s community-led model for girls’ education, and comes at a critical time as CAMFED and its partners tackle the impact of the current crisis, which has left millions of girls vulnerable.

Education transformation is more important than ever. The outstanding achievements and commitment of this year’s laureates demonstrate that in a post-pandemic world, education continues to be of vital importance to solving future problems and creating positive change in individuals, communities and the environment. Innovative ideas and practices are key to driving progress in education to create a better world.
Dr Charles CHEN Yidan, Founder of Yidan Prize Foundation

Celebrating Excellence in Education

The Yidan Prize is an inclusive education award that recognizes individuals, or up to three-member teams, who have contributed significantly to education research and development. This year’s laureates, including Professor Carl Wieman, who was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Research today, will be recognized at the Yidan Prize Annual Summit held virtually on 7 December. They were chosen by the Yidan Prize Judging Committee in a five-month judging process, from an extensive field of nominations covering 103 countries.

This Prize brings a spotlight to the power of our growing movement led by young women who are the experts on what it takes for the most marginalized girls to succeed. Together, we will launch our ambition to support five million girls in school, and it will be game-changing!
Lucy Lake, Chief Executive Officer, CAMFED

This is a dream come true, especially at such a time as this! Together we are going to make more girls and young women’s dreams come true. We are going to make this world an even better place.
Angeline Murimirwa, Executive Director – Africa, CAMFED

The award particularly recognizes the contribution to equitable quality education delivered through CAMFED’s innovative Learner Guide program, which sees young women leaders in the CAMFED Association, who themselves were supported in their education by CAMFED, at the forefront of designing and delivering programs in support of more girls in their communities, in partnership with government ministries.

The program provides a scalable, replicable and inclusive approach to girls’ and young women’s education in sub-Saharan Africa, tackling high levels of exclusion and drop-out from school, lack of relatable role models, and youth unemployment.

Through the Learner Guide program, marginalized girls receive the material and social support to learn and thrive, while young women gain the skills, opportunities and confidence to transition from secondary school to fulfilling, independent livelihoods and leadership.

Through CAMFED’s Learner Guide program, those who best understand the barriers to girls’ education step up to support their younger peers in school, and beyond the classroom.

The Yidan Prize is the most significant accolade in education. It recognizes and rewards changemakers. And if this year has taught us anything, it’s that education in research and education for development are becoming more and more important.
Dr Koichiro Matsuura, former Director-General of UNESCO.

CAMFED will use the prize money to scale up the Learner Guide program, contributing to the training of 20,000 Learner Guides, who will in turn support one million adolescent girls in school — a major step towards our goal of supporting five million girls.

Our sincerest thanks go to the Yidan Prize Foundation, and to its founder, Dr. Charles CHEN Yidan, for this extraordinary recognition, and to the young women leaders in our CAMFED Association, our partner communities, donors, supporters and champions across the globe – Together We Can!

Meet the 2020 Yidan Prize Laureates here

Watch the Yidan Prize Summit 2020