SI Cambridge

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CAMFED

CAMFED is the Campaign for Female Education. It was founded in 1993 by Ann Cotton following a visit to Africa in 1990, where she toured villages and found that girls were dropping out of school early, and few were going into higher education.

The organisation works in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia with the aim of increasing opportunities for girls and young women. They started off with 32 girls in Zimbabwe and now support 72,000 girls in 1,000 schools.

To illustrate the scale of the problem;
• 24 million girls in Africa are not in education
• 54% do not complete primary education
• Only 17% are enrolled in secondary school
• Women between the ages of 15 and 24 have the fastest growing HIV rate in the world
• In Zambia women are 5 or 6 times more likely to be HIV positive than men.

The benefits of educating women to a higher level are:
• They are likely to earn their own living
• They will earn a better living
• They will be less likely to have HIV infection
• They will be empowered to take part in economic and political life
• They will have smaller, healthier families.

The girls are supported all through their education with schooling costs, transport, and accommodation in a safe school environment, with schools providing female staff to act as mentors. Grants and further training are given to help them support themselves, and to enable them to become leaders and contribute to the community.
CAMA is a network of 5000 women who have been supported by CAMFED which has been formed to give peer and local community support.

Statistical evidence of CAMFED’s success in 2005
• 245,525 children have benefited from educational support
• 13,368 community activists worked with CAMFED
• 5,366 young women received business training
• 585 went on to start their own business
• 216 trainees as health activists
• 71,200 young people received vital health information
• 16,226 children were supported by the philanthropy of CAMA and mothers groups.

Michele gave the costs involved in supporting ten girls for one year; School fees, Hostel fees, Groceries, Stationery, Social support and CAMFED monitoring and reporting come to a total of £1300.