(delivered at the launch event for the Financial Times 2007 seasonal appeal)

At the age of 13, when I had just completed my first year of secondary school education, my father lost his job as a general hand at a meat processing plant in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare. Every year from that point on, my family and I struggled to scrape together enough money to ensure that I could stay in school. My parents were barely able to raise the $42 in annual school fees for my second year of secondary school, so I had to work to pay for notebooks, pens and other school materials. On weekends, I woke up at 4:30 am to travel from village to village selling vegetables. I would get back home around 9:00 am, and then go to the local market to continue selling vegetables for up to eight hours a day. Despite all this effort, I only earned the equivalent of 30 cents a day. (more…)

Fiona Muchembere joined global leaders, including President Carter, Jeff Skoll and Al Gore and at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford University from March 26 to 28. As the first girl from her rural community in Zimbabwe to attend university as well as the first to become a lawyer, Fiona was able to share with the audience her experience of breaking through the barriers of poverty to set a new precedent for children and young people in rural communities. Fiona was supported through her education by Camfed, and today she holds a managerial position supporting Cama (Camfed’s growing alumnae organization) across four countries of Africa.

Fiona challenged the idea that girls’ exclusion from education is an expression of culture. “In Africa we value education,” Fiona told her audience and fellow panelists. “Families are proud of their children – both boys and girls –who receive further education, especially in the rural areas. But the context of chronic poverty and AIDS has masked this cultural value.” Fiona described how the economic crisis in Zimbabwe is making it increasingly difficult for families to be able to afford to send their girls to school. As education costs rise, more and more girls are dropping out of school and migrating to urban areas or neighbouring countries where they are vulnerable to sexual exploitation or abuse which can lead to HIV/AIDS.

“Poverty is robbing children of the right to education despite the high value it has within our culture,” she continued. Fiona is supporting 22 members of her immediate and extended family through school. Consequently, she and other educated young women in Zimbabwe are increasingly regarded as leaders by their communities. “Our families often ask us, ‘You are the ones that went to school–what should we do in this situation?’” she said.

With Fiona and her fellow Cama members sending almost 50,000 girls to school this year, a growing number of young women in rural Africa will be able to answer that question with confidence.

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CAMFED SELECTED AS PARTNER ON GOLDMAN SACHS GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO PROVIDE BUSINESS EDUCATION TO UNDERSERVED WOMEN

San Francisco, Calif., March 6, 2008–The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) and the University of Cambridge are delighted to be included in the first wave of partners in investment banking firm Goldman Sachs Group’s 10,000 Women initiative, which was announced on March 5th. The global initiative aims to unlock the economic potential of women in developing and emerging markets by providing high-quality business and management education to 10,000 underserved women around the world.

With funding from the Goldman Sachs initiative, Camfed, in conjunction with the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School and Cambridge Assessment, will create two innovative certificate programs for women high school graduates in rural Africa. The Starting Early, Moving up and Flying High program will work with educational institutions in Zambia to offer an unprecedented opportunity for 560 young African women to cultivate their business acumen.

“It is tremendously exciting to be part of this visionary initiative where so many esteemed academic institutions and entrepreneurs are coming together to create change,” said Ann Cotton, founder and Executive Director of Camfed.

“Because there is such high unemployment in rural Africa, women there must create their own opportunities. The Goldman Sachs initiative will help unleash African women’s tremendous creativity and energy, and transform them from job seekers to job creators.”

The first certificate program designed by the Camfed-Cambridge partnership will cultivate basic business literacy with entrepreneurship and leadership development through an intensive summer residential program for young women who have just graduated from high school.

The second certificate will be a part-time, two year program for women who are employed or enrolled in post-secondary career training as nurses and teachers to augment their skills with financial management and entrepreneurial training. The program will also offer coaching, personal development and networking resources.

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The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in rural Africa by educating girls and investing in their economic independence and leadership. Camfed began in 1993 by supporting 32 girls in rural Zimbabwe. In 2007, more than 408,000 children in some of the poorest regions of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania benefited from Camfed’s education program; 13,667 community members received business skills training; and 1,440 young women were supported to start their own enterprises. In 2008, Camfed will launch a program in Malawi, and by 2010, it plans to expand to a total of seven countries. For more information, visit www.camfed.org.

Judge Business School is internationally recognized as one of the leading providers of innovative, intellectually challenging and practical business management education across a portfolio of undergraduate, graduate and executive programs. As a fully integrated department of a world renowned university, Judge Business School hosts one of the largest concentrations of interdisciplinary business and management research activity in Europe. Ranked 10th in the 2008 FT Global Rankings of business schools , 7th in the 2007 Economist Intelligence Unit Global MBA Rankings, and 3rd in the 2007 Forbes Global Rankings for one year MBA programmes, the Cambridge MBA sits alongside the very best in the world. www.jbs.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Assessment Group, a non-profit organization, is Europe’s largest assessment agency. Cambridge Assessment Group incorporates three examination boards and is a department of the University of Cambridge. It is the Group’s objective to ensure learners across the world are able to access the benefits of their education through receiving fair and accurate assessment.

Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, it is one of the oldest and largest investment banking firms. The firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.

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Contact:
Kimberley Sevcik
Media Relations Officer
Camfed
T: +415-979-1556
E: pr@camfed.org

Tim Holt
Deputy Head of Communications
University of Cambridge
T: +44-223-332300

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I am the fifth of seven children and my mother raised us on her own, so we were always struggling. I was never certain from one year to the next whether I would be able to go to school. But I was fortunate: In Kilombero District where I grew up in central Tanzania, there were three mothers who were passionate about education, and if they saw that a girl was unable to go to school they found it so painful that that they had to help. They supported me up to standard seven (seventh grade). (more…)