Accra, May 30, GNA – As part of their progressive campaign to support more females to fully develop their potentials to make the world a better place for all of its citizens, CAMFED is implementing their five – year strategic plan (2020-2025).
Over the period, CAMFED’s goal is to support five million girls to attend and thrive in school, by leveraging the ‘Multiplier Effect’ – whereby young women who have been supported by CAMFED through school provide social and economic support to the next generation of girls.
Background
In 1993, CAMFED supported its first cohort of girls, providing bursaries to 32 girls in Zimbabwe to attend school. Today, CAMFED has grown to an organisation that has supported the education of more than 4.1 million marginalised children in five countries (Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe).
Recently, they surpassed their target of supporting one million girls in secondary school in five years, 2015-2019.
CAMFED’s programme has evolved from one focused on bursary support to girls, to a highly responsive model that addresses the exclusion that girls face from and within school, and the challenges they confront beyond school.
CAMFED’s work is increasingly driven by the CAMFED Association, the ‘alumnae network’ of women who themselves received support from CAMFED to attend school and are now leaders for girls’ education in their communities.
Currently 157,000 strong, the CAMFED Association is a growing social movement, which is transforming the landscape of girls’ education and women’s empowerment in Africa. The Ubuntu concept is thus beautifully actualised in this model.
CAMFED Strategic Plan 2020-2025
The 2020-2025 strategic plan builds on its experience and momentum to set a game-changing ambition:
To achieve this goal, CAMFED is implementing a three-pronged approach:
1. Anchor the strategy in the Multiplier Effect – They will build the pipeline of girls who complete secondary school, join the CAMFED Association, and together step forward as activists and leaders for girls’ education;
2. Scale the Learner Guide Programme – They will partner with the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to roll out its flagship mentoring programme through which young women lead on providing social support to girls in school;
3. Invest in Enterprise Development – They will expand young women’s livelihood opportunities and in turn, their capacity to provide economic support to girls.
Beyond supporting five million girls in school, CAMFED believes this strategic plan will bring about systemic impact. By growing CAMFED Association membership, it will also scale the powerful values system that propels the Association and unites communities around the cause of girls’ education and women’s empowerment. By scaling the Learner Guide Programme, CAMFED will transform school systems to an environment where the needs of marginalised girls are met. By investing in Enterprise Development, it will improve job opportunities for women – the goal is to create at least 150,000 new jobs over the strategic plan period. « Crucially, we will unlock a powerful force for effective climate action – indirectly through girls’ education, and directly through climate-smart agri-businesses run by young women contributing to increased community resilience, » CAMFED says in the strategic document.
» Over the course of the plan, we will build a rigorous evidence base on the impact and cost-effectiveness of our strategy.
« We will position this evidence with partners, including policymakers in order to inform approaches to scaling action for girls’ education that unlocks its full potential for individuals and for society. »
CAMFED says it is well-positioned to deliver on the ambition of this new strategy.
« Our leadership brings a depth of knowledge on girls’ education and livelihoods, combining experience from government and private sector with the expertise of our senior team many of whom were once themselves CAMFED’s beneficiaries.”
Scaling CAMFED’s model will take a huge investment over five years. By anchoring their scaling plan in the Multiplier Effect, they are hopeful to create a high return on investment as donor partner funding is matched by the growing CAMFED Association collective philanthropy.
This ultimately means that the investment in girls’ education continues growing and replicating over generations.
CAMFED, consequently, urges visionary partners to take a leadership role in its growing global movement, committed to securing a better future for girls, their communities and for Africa.
About CAMFED
Learn, thrive and lead change
CAMFED is a pan-African movement, revolutionising how girls’ education is delivered. Through a gold-standard system of accountability to the young people and communities it serves, it has created a model that radically improves girls’ prospects of becoming independent, influential women.
Through the CAMFED Association, women are leading action on the big challenges their countries face – from child marriage, and girls’ exclusion from education, to climate change. This unique pan-African network of lawyers, doctors, educators, and entrepreneurs now numbers more than 157,000 and is growing exponentially as more girls complete school and join them.
