The Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, Minister for Development and Africa, speaks to CAMFED's CEO Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa as UK government releases white paper underscoring its commitment to tackling extreme poverty and climate change
In the lead-up to Day of the Girl 2023, the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, Minister for Development and Africa in the United Kingdom, met with Angeline Murimirwa, CEO of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education, to discuss the imperative of girls’ education – which was also underscored in the International Development White Paper released this week.
Committed to girls' education and women’s leadership
This week, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) released its International Development White Paper, which underscores its commitment to tackling extreme poverty and climate change, and the imperative of securing the rights of girls and women.
CAMFED’s work (page 87) is among the case studies featured, illustrating how investment and action can lead to “a globally recognised [model] with an excellent track record of success.”
In this fireside chat, preceding the release of the policy paper, Minister Mitchell and Angie Murimirwa discuss why girls’ education and women’s leadership are so critical to our collective success.
Success is visible in the girls who have received CAMFED support. They use their education to improve their own lives, and those of their families and communities too, by paying for and supporting girls in their communities to access quality education. CAMFED graduates now run the organisation – as CEO, as Board representatives, and as national and international leaders. Their leadership and governance model provides an outstanding example of partnership with those the organisation was established to serve.
We are the CAMFED Association, Africa’s largest and fastest-growing peer support and leadership network of young women activists for girls' education. We share a common background of exclusion and marginalization, and an unstoppable determination to ensure that every girl secures her right to go to school, learn and thrive.
CAMFED Learner Guides return to their former schools as role models and mentors, helping marginalized children to stay in school, learn with confidence, succeed, and create a better world for themselves and their communities. As "Big Sisters" Learner Guides have the empathy and expertise to unlock the limitless potential of vulnerable children, especially girls, in their rural communities.
Through its youth enterprise programs, CAMFED is dedicated to improving the futures of young women beyond the classroom. Generating an income not only supports young women's economic independence, their life choices, and the prospects for their families; it also enables them to expand their reach as activists and philanthropists.
CAMFED's Climate-Smart Agriculture Guide program supports young women to understand climate change, to build climate-smart livelihoods (improving farming yields, income and jobs) and to share knowledge and skills for climate resilience and improved nutrition widely in their communities.
Confidence, courage, compassion, collaboration: How girls’ education is boosting a sisterhood of game changers
CAMFED Tanzania's Anna Sawaki and Stumai Kaguna look back over a decade that has changed the lives of more than 277,000 young women in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe thanks to investment under the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) funded through UK Aid. By way of Stumai's own story, they explain how CAMFED's program, developed under the GEC, is helping girls in marginalized communities to build confidence and become a new generation of change leaders.