Building Trust in Girls’ Education

In her interview with Jihii Jolly from News Deeply Women and Girls, Angeline Murimirwa, CAMFED’s Regional Executive Director for Eastern and Southern Africa (and one of the first girls CAMFED supported to go to school in Zimbabwe) discusses the issue of trust in international development, and how she uses her own story to build it.

“That’s how we build trust. By solid results, by engaging real people, by real life examples. By being prepared to fail. You make the mistake, you learn, you start all over again and don’t give up. And never blame the child for their own poverty.”

Angeline (known to most of us as ‘Angie’ and to many of her sisters in CAMFED’s CAMA alumnae network as ‘the Ancestor’) was a high performer at primary school, just like her mother, as teachers always pointed out to her.

This confused a girl whose mother never went to secondary school, until she realised that it was poverty that had held all the women in her family back. Angie’s mother was stubborn, and intent on breaking this cycle when CAMFED first came to her community. Now Angie and more than 84,000 members of CAMA lead on program development and delivery and, most importantly, nourish the trust in their communities.

Read the News Deeply interview: How One Advocate Uses Her Own Story to Build Trust in Girls’ Education

Angeline not long after she graduated from school and helped to set up the CAMFED’s CAMA alumnae network.