CamFed (the Campaign for Female Education) is an international non-governmental organisation, founded in Cambridge in 1993. CamFed works in sub-Saharan Africa, currently in 21 rural districts of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Ghana, to support girls through school and enable them, as educated young women, to lead social and economic change in their communities.

Why Girls?

CamFed believes that all children have an absolute right to education. The reality is that in sub-Saharan Africa, access to education is actually falling and the majority of excluded children are girls. It is ironic that in the poorest countries of the world, children pay to go to school. Poor parents have to make the cruel choice as to which children to educate. Boys are invariably favoured as they are more likely to secure paid future work and contribute to family survival.

It is widely recognised that girls' exclusion from education is senseless if the battle against poverty is to be won: "Better educated women are more likely, in comparison with their peers, to delay marriage and child bearing, have fewer children and healthier babies, enjoy better earning potential, have stronger decision-making and negotiation skills as well as higher self-esteem." 'Education & HIV/AIDS - A Window of Hope', The World Bank, 2002.

In CamFed's own experience, girls' lives are completely transformed by education, as the words of Fiona Muchembere, one of the first girls supported by CamFed in Zimbabwe and now a qualified lawyer, describe: "We now have freedom in every sphere of life, for example economic freedom through professions and enterprise, and reproductive freedom in deciding when to marry, who to marry and when to have a child. This in itself is breaking the vicious cycle of poverty."

CamFed's Approach

All community decision-makers are involved in the programme - chiefs, government officers, headteachers, health-workers and parents. In this way, girls become the focus of concern for all those with the power to improve their lives, and communities themselves identify the problems and develop solutions, while CamFed provides the financial resources, which the communities are too poor to provide.

As well as meeting the costs of education, CamFed sets up support systems for girls who are facing extremely difficult circumstances at home. The girls supported by the programme are all from homes where the social impact of poverty is felt very keenly - there is ill-health and bereavement and increasingly girls are becoming the carers in homes where parents are dying from AIDS-related illnesses. CamFed ensures girls are supported to continue their education in the face of these problems.

In 9 years, the programme has come full circle: educated young women are now leading community initiatives to improve health as peer educators, and to create jobs by setting up new businesses and services, and they are enabling more girls to enter the programme.

Future Plans

There is great potential for CamFed's work to be applied more widely and there is certainly a great need. A programme will be launched in South Africa in 2003 and we also plan to expand the programme into new districts of Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. We very much hope that Cambridge SAFE schemes will continue to support the expansion of this vital work in the coming year.

More information

Please visit http://www.camfed.org or contact Rajul Shah (rshah@camfed.org), Tel. 01223 362648. CamFed (UK Reg. Charity No. 1029161), 21 Miller's Yard, Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RQ

SAFE's Support
In the past year, Cambridge SAFE schemes have raised a fantastic £19,996 for CamFed's work in Africa. This support makes a huge difference to the lives of the girls and young women from deeply poor, rural communities - thank you!

Click here to see the full list of SAFE donations to CamFed and other charities.