Education is a fundamental right, and a matter of justice. Girls' education and women's leadership is also key to tackling our most pressing global challenges.
CAMFED believes that every child is entitled to a quality education in a safe environment, and to a life as an independent adult. With access to education, women can do amazing things: launch climate-smart businesses, become health workers, run schools, and lead governments, making the world a better place for everyone.
The odds are stacked against girls from disadvantaged, rural communities in Africa: 95% never complete secondary school. (The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity The Learning Generation Report, p. 142, Note 36)
When families lack the income for food, transport, school fees, uniforms, and essentials like menstrual products, girls are the first to drop out of school. They are the first to be failed by the system, facing the perils of early marriage, early pregnancy, and abuse. Without the choice to write their own futures, their endless potential is wasted.
In her 2023 TED Talk, CAMFED’s CEO Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa challenges you to see girls’ education through a different lens and explores the power of peer support.
Girls’ education, done right:
Investing in girls' education and young women's leadership is a proven way of improving the health and wealth of entire nations.
Educated women will reinvest 90% of their earnings back into their families, compared with 35% for men. They'll invest in their children's education and support their studies.
Women with a secondary school education will earn twice as much, on average, as women without an education. Lack of girls' secondary education costs countries between $15 and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.
Educated girls are up to three times less likely to become HIV-positive, and at reduced risk of malaria.
Girls with secondary schooling are five times less likely to marry as children compared to girls who have little or no education, and have healthier families
You went to primary school, loved your lessons, and enjoyed playing with your classmates. But when it was time to go to secondary school you had to drop out. You may have lost one or both of your parents, and are looking after younger siblings, or helping out elderly grandparents. Your extended family does not have the money for school fees, food, uniforms, or transport. You now have to work to earn money to help your family. You’re vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and early marriage, at risk of physical violence, HIV/AIDS, and serious complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Without education, you’re denied the chance to fulfil your potential and break the cycle of poverty for good.
Selected by your community, you receive financial and social support to go to school, including mentorship by young women who know exactly what you’re going through. Together, we dismantle the barriers to your education, partnering with parents, teachers, government officials and traditional authorities to deliver your entitlements. The support is not a one-off injection of money, but a package that allows you to enrol in school, do well academically and socially, and maximize the value of your education after graduation. You become part of our sisterhood, the CAMFED Association of women leaders, and acquire the skills to start a business, or apply for a job or further education. You decide if and when to marry and have children. And you reinvest in the community that nurtured you.
Watch our CAMFED 101 webinar with Angeline Murimirwa, CAMFED Executive Director – Africa (at the time or recording). As one of the very first girls supported to go to secondary school by CAMFED in Zimbabwe, she is the embodiment of the unparalleled returns of investing in girls’ education.
One of millions of girls facing poverty-related barriers to remaining in school, Christina understands only too well the choice and opportunity an education can afford. Once supported at secondary school, she could picture her bright future.
Supported by CAMFED to complete her education, Nimatu is now an inspirational leader and philanthropist in the CAMFED Association. Through her Changemakers Girls’ Club, she mentors 60 girls at the only Senior High School in her district.
When you educate a girl through CAMFED, you ignite the Multiplier Effect of girls’ education, because you’re investing in tomorrow’s leaders, working together to change the status quo for the most marginalized people in their communities and countries, and making the world a better place for everyone.
Find out more about what sets us apart, and how we catalyze the power of the most vulnerable girls and young women to create the future they imagine — for themselves, for their communities, and for Africa.
What sets us apart
Education saves lives in so many ways! Read how Juliana, supported by CAMFED through school and nursing college, stepped in to deliver a baby by the roadside. “Though I felt I could have failed and something terrible could have happened, I was pushed by my confidence and the knowledge I have acquired from school and at my workplace.”
Education disrupts the status quo! Watch this CNN special to see how Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa, CAMFED’s Executive Director – Africa, and her sisters in the CAMFED Association, use their lived experience to drive change through girls’ education. “Giving everybody a chance to go to school is justice. It tells every child that they belong, that they own their destiny, that they can shape it.”
Education drives climate action! As Fiona Mavhinga, Executive Adviser to the CAMFED Association summarizes: “Not only is girls’ education a right, it is the foundation for women’s leadership. Evidence shows that women’s leadership results in better environmental decision-making.” Catch up with all the ways our Sisterhood contributed to the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26.
Sherry Thompsen $50
Joan and Scott Barker $526
dilhara anbil $7000
Kristin Nylen $158
Michael Glanz $150
JOyce Feeney $150
Vanessa Dauterive $26.6
Aran MacKinnon $106
Lyndon Hepner $52.9
Ron and Mary Freytag $106
Tamar Gubins $200
Tracy Clark $14
Rebecca Boyd Whittico $263
Mareka Belcher $5.6
Natalie Wexler $1052
When she thrives, we all thrive
Together this giving season, we can make a difference that ripples outward to benefit everyone.
