Women Who Lead - Hawa Tambo - Video Transcript

Hawa Tambo, Assemblyperson and CAMFED Association Member My name is Hawa Tambo. I am coming from Karaga District, Northern Ghana. I am coming from a home of five children and I’m the only person to be educated.

Rashida Iddisah, Program Manager and CAMFED Association Member I met Hawa at the Smart Camp in 2009 when she was a first year student at Karaga Senior High School. She explained that she was the only girl in her community and her village to have reached senior high school. Therefore, before we left to camp, she was called ‘Village Champion.’ Growing up in Karaga district, life was very hard for Hawa. Karaga is one of the districts where girls enrollment in school is very poor.

Hawa Tambo, Assemblyperson and CAMFED Association Member The main challenges for me was that my parents didn’t have money to cater for my education. And secondly, because they were not educated, like ignorance, they didn’t know the importance of girl child education. I got to know CAMFED in 2008. That was the year CAMFED came into my life. They give me a uniform, sandals, exercise books, pens and even the fees I was struggling to pay, they paid that money.

Rashida Iddisah, Program Manager and CAMFED Association Member Hawa’s ability to stay in school and complete changed the perception of most parents in her community. They saw her as a role model. This inspired a lot of parents in her community to send their daughters to school.

CAMA is CAMFED Alumnae (Association), a network of CAMFED supported young women who are dedicated to reinvesting the benefits of education into the development of their communities. Hawa joined the CAMA Network in 2012 after she completed secondary school. Hawa regularly visits her old school with her colleague CAMA members in the district to educate the girls on the importance of girls’ education and the need for them to remain focused and stay and complete school.

Hawa Tambo, Assemblyperson and CAMFED Association Member Everybody is saying they want to be a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, she wants to be the president of Ghana! That’s great!

Rashida Iddisah, Program Manager and CAMFED Association Member They also visited communities, engaging community members on the discussion of social issues that affected girls’ education in their district, such as teenage pregnancies, early marriages, rural urban migration, which is very rampant also in Karaga.

Two years ago Hawa stood for the district assembly elections and was elected as the assembly person for her community. She received strong support and today she is a hardworking and much respected assembly person representing her communities on the district assembly.

Hawa Tambo, Assemblyperson and CAMFED Association Member We have 50 assembly members in my district. Out of the 50, 3 are female and out of the 3, 2 are CAMA members. They elected me to become the assemblyperson because they know that I can bring something back to the community.

Rashida Iddisah, Program Manager and CAMFED Association Member Hawa is a role model in her community, showing what is possible when girls are keeping an education. Through CAMA, young women like Hawa are opening leadership pathways for women all over Africa.

Hawa Tambo, Assemblyperson and CAMFED Association Member My priority is to bring education to my community.

Text over white screen Young women like Hawa are multiplying the support that they have received. They know what girls need to succeed, they simply need the resources to make change happen.