Together we are... 2023 - CAMFED International

Together we are...

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Welcome...

This year’s Together we are tells a story of change.

Autumn 2023

Education, after all, is nothing if not the business of changing what’s possible. At the core of CAMFED’s 30-year journey is the constant commitment to that possibility, which all starts with a girl securing her right to go to school.

For each of the young women you read about here — taking courageous strides as they secure loans, start a business, or join an advisory board — their journeys began by stepping into a classroom. It was the same path trodden by our CEO, Angeline Murimirwa, and the quarter-million other women coming up behind her through CAMFED’s alumnae Association.

As Desire says (p.35) “CAMFED took me from the dust and it lifted me up to a place where I can help change things for others”.

Angie’s journey has brought her to the global stage, and at TED2023 this year she calls on us all to take action. Our focus on every girl who needs our support hasn’t changed, but the need and opportunity for action are greater than ever. We are navigating the effects of extreme economic and climate events, and strengthening the pathways for educated women to help the next generation through agriculture, health, business, leadership and advocacy. We are mobilising governments with an ambition to reach millions more of the most vulnerable children by 2030.

You, our supporters, are a cornerstone of this story. Ruth (p.28) should leave you with no doubt of the impact you have: “I would humbly request that donors see us, me and my Association sisters, and see what their contribution makes possible. What their love makes possible. We are living testimonies that CAMFED is really working.”

Thank you, from all of us at CAMFED, for standing with us, for being agents of possibility and voices of constancy in your support. Together we are making the world a better place for the next generation.

Emily Zemke, Ph.D Chief Development Officer

Together we are...

EXPANDING OUR HORIZONS

In September, the United Nations Transforming Education Summit called on governments and donor partners to tackle gender inequality as an urgent priority to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

With the support of our global donor community this year, we have done just this — expanded our 2025 strategic plan to the end of the decade, allowing us to set bigger and bolder aspirations for the next generation.

This has never been more important. Still today in sub-Saharan Africa, 95% of girls from poor families never complete secondary education. Their exclusion is widely recognized as the single biggest impediment to economic security, prosperity, and climate resilience.

And we are ready. Now with a quarter million young women school graduates in our pan-African network, the CAMFED Association, our goal is to reach 8M extremely vulnerable girls this decade with comprehensive support to thrive in school. We aim to improve each girl’s school completion, attendance, learning and self esteem.

Our deep-rooted partnerships with governments in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi uniquely position us to also reach at least another 10M children with high-quality education solutions, through school partnerships and national adoption of our model.

At the close of 2022, we had made strong progress towards our 2030 goals, as follows:

2.04M girls have been supported so far this decade to go to school.

254,470 young women are now members of the CAMFED Association.

68,761 CAMFED Association members are in local, national and international leadership positions.

7,044 schools are partnering with CAMFED across 165 rural districts.

This report brings together the perspectives of Association members and our donors to describe our progress this year towards our 2030 strategic goals. They are:

Comprehensive social and financial support for the most vulnerable girls so they can attend, participate and succeed in school (pages 10-17);

Transition support for young women so that beyond school, they can join a peer support and leadership network, establish secure livelihoods and take up positions of influence (pages 18-23); and

Improved learning opportunities for every child, through the adoption of proven solutions in national education systems (pages 24-31).

ORGANIZATIONAL UPDATES

• At the start of the year, we announced that Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa has taken up the role of CAMFED’s Chief Executive Officer. Angie takes the reins from Lucy Lake, who served as CEO for 11 years.

• In April, it was announced that CAMFED has been selected by The Audacious Project as one of the boldest solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. Every year, The Audacious Project — housed at TED — selects and nurtures a group of timely solutions, bringing together an inspiring group of backers to support them.

“We’re thrilled to bring a spotlight to CAMFED’s model, which shows the extraordinary potential that is unlocked when girls secure their right to education as the key to a brighter future.” — Anna Verghese, Executive Director, The Audacious Project

• Angie delivered a talk at TED2023 in Vancouver, to discuss the transformative potential of our 2030 goals. She invited viewers to see the world through the eyes of a girl in rural Africa, and experience the difference that the support of a sisterhood –and a leadership model designed to transform systems from within – can make.

Together we are...

CREATING A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR MILLIONS

For 30 years, CAMFED has been with me on my journey, starting with my education at secondary school, and seeing me now at the helm as CEO. And when I look around at the extraordinary resilience and capacity shown by each and every individual in this global community, who has tirelessly pushed for change over its first three decades, I am humbled.

But, as an Association member, I can tell you that it’s not in our nature to look backward for very long, not while there is still more we can do. There are tens of millions of girls across rural Africa who woke up this morning filled with a passion to gain access to the education they are denied, girls who remind me of myself before CAMFED came into my life, girls whose ambition we must meet.

This year needs to mark a new dawn for these girls. With the momentum of our 254,000 Association members, and the deep relationships we hold with governments, we must be bold and audacious in our ambition. We must continue striving harder and pushing further on the boundaries of what is possible.

It’s with this imperative that we expand our strategic goals to 2030 and commit to creating a brighter future for millions more children. It is with these children in my mind that I stood on the TED stage in April and asked the world to join us.

And I’m very aware that you brought us here, to this place, to this stage and this opportunity. If we can create a brighter future for vulnerable children, it will be because we did it together. Which is why I say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all you have already done — and thank you for staying with us.

Pamoja Tunaweza — together we can.

Angie Murimirwa CAMFED CEO

Together we are... GUIDING HER THROUGH SCHOOL

Amida Zackaria Kiyao from Tanzania is one of 22,550 CAMFED school graduates who have trained as Learner Guides, (5,100 in the last year), to deliver a wellbeing and learning skills curriculum, My Better World, in their local schools. She explains why social support is as critical as financial support for the most vulnerable children.

For the last two years, I have chosen to volunteer as a Learner Guide in the same school where I am a paid teacher of Swahili and English, because it allows me to support my students in different ways.

As a Learner Guide, I show students techniques to improve their studying, and help them see that school is the best place for them to be. I support them to discover their talents, how to set goals and how to achieve them. I am able to help build their self confidence, and listen to problems they might not want to talk to a teacher about. While doing this, I look out for signs that a girl’s home environment isn’t good and help with those kinds of issues and, if a student drops out, I work to find out why and bring them back to school. I can tell them my own story and show them what is possible through education.

The first time I heard of CAMFED was when I was in secondary school. My mother wasn’t able to provide for our basic needs. Life was bad, and I did not know if I would complete my education. Then CAMFED

gave me everything I needed to stay in school. It meant I could not only finish my education, but I could do it with high marks and go on to university and qualify as a teacher.

I wish the Learner Guide program had existed in Tanzania when I was in school. A number of my classmates dropped out due to issues like early pregnancy, lack of motivation — a lack of advice, really, which Learner Guides would have provided.

Since the Government removed school fees in Tanzania, class sizes have become very big, so having the extra support of Learner Guides has become even more valuable. As a professional teacher myself, I can say that teachers at schools with Learner Guides are happy to know that their students are getting this extra support, and that it improves their academic performance. They are more confident, able to support themselves, and they become champions for other vulnerable people.

I’m happy to be able to give back to the organization and community that enabled me to become the happy, successful person I am today.

Tanzania Country Context

Class sizes in Tanzania have grown since secondary school fees were abolished in 2015, with a national average class size of 70. In June, the President’s Office of Regional Administration and Local Governments announced that it is working on robust measures to address a shortage of teachers in public schools — estimated to be in the region of 175,000. CAMFED Tanzania continues to collaborate with the government on the newly introduced re-entry policy for out-of-school students.

Learner Guides identify and provide targeted support to especially vulnerable girls (on average 23 each), who may need home visits, assistance with basic needs or linkage to family and school authorities. By 2030 we aim to have trained 146,000 more Learner Guides.

“We truly believe in the role girls and young women can play to bring stability in life and make progress to build balanced communities. Helping an individual girl is obviously great, but the broader impact that this can have through that single girl is an incredible concept — it’s not just providing an individual with shortterm support, it’s providing a long-term solution to a problem.

Over the years we’ve been involved with CAMFED, we’ve come to see how well-connected it stays with its alumnae, and that shows the value of the work happening in schools. The strength of the efforts these young women put in after leaving education shows they really feel that they got something significant out of their own experiences of being supported in school.

You could describe us as pretty rational people. If we donate, we want to be convinced that the money is having an impact. And CAMFED pays attention to the numbers — how many girls have been educated, and what are they doing now? And how many go on to be part of the alumnae network? It tells the personal stories, but also shows the actual broader impact in numbers, facts and figures. For us, it’s that combination that has meant there’s never been any hesitation to continue donating.”

Rika Coppens and Dirk De Naeyer, CAMFED donors of 12 years

Over the course of this decade, we aim to reach 8M girls with targeted psychosocial support proven to increase their chances of completing secondary education, and encourage deeper learning skills and increased academic selfesteem, self-efficacy and self-confidence.

The Teacher Mentor Continuous Professional Development Program was launched in Zimbabwe in 2019, in partnership with Roberta Mondadori Perren and Beverley Tydeman. Teacher Mentors are education professionals in CAMFED partner schools who work to ensure vulnerable girls stay in school, often by providing emotional support and mentoring.

Working closely with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, the Continuous Professional Development Program is supporting the mental wellbeing of Teacher Mentors, improving the provision of Guidance & Counselling support in schools, and strengthening the supportive ecosystem around teachers.

The pilot program has so far reached 386 Guidance & Counselling teachers and 126 school heads in 126 CAMFED partner schools in rural districts of Zimbabwe. A manual produced through the project — Guidance & Counselling as a Service: Providers’ Wellbeing Guide — is currently in the final stage of governmental review ahead of approval for national use.

Together we are...

SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE

Roberta Mondadori Perren is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, funding and consulting CAMFED on a groundbreaking project to support the mental health of teachers in rural communities. Here she discusses the benefits of psychosocial support programs — for providers and recipients.

hat CAMFED calls psychosocial support — counselling — helps learners better understand what they can do when they are in a crisis and how to deal with it. The aim is that girls get an experience of a caring person, an experience which will hopefully help them throughout their life.

I have been involved with CAMFED since 2017 when I went to Zimbabwe with my colleague Beverley Tydeman, also a child and adolescent psychotherapist, to take part in a three-day workshop for Teacher Mentors. These young women, who were providing learners with counselling, were themselves in need of support. They deal with learners in crisis, and often don’t have a good start in life themselves, so the children’s problems can reactivate those feelings.

We were amazed by the sophistication of the workshop, and the hunger to learn from the participants, the openness of their minds. What matters is how much the recipient wants to learn and understand, and it was a very receptive audience. That first trip led to two more.

WWhile at the workshops, we talked about the importance of observing children in the classroom, paying attention if someone starts behaving differently, listening carefully and openly, and paying attention to their own feelings so as not to be overwhelmed by the child’s problems. Some of the young women participating made very intuitive realizations.

One participant discussed how difficult it was to help a particular learner — who had lost her mother and sister in a traffic accident — because she identified with the girl too much, having lost her own mother at a very young age. The girl’s leg was still in plaster after the accident, and she was repeatedly banging her leg on the floor. The young woman said she felt the girl was using her pain as a barrier and expressing the emotional pain she was feeling as a physical pain. She had understood the girl and, despite it reminding her of her own losses, was able to separate her feelings in order to help.

It was a very good example of the aim of CAMFED’s psychosocial support — this girl benefited from experiencing a caring person, and that will hopefully remain inside her, will help her, for the rest of her life.

In 2022, 63% of the girls reached by CAMFED were supported by Association members. As the Association grows to reach 540,000 members by 2030, we anticipate each member financially supporting at least five girls.

Zimbabwe Country Context

In June, inflation rates reached a yearly high of 175%, driving up the cost of household essentials. Between February and April bread, sugar, and wheat flour prices increased by 40%, while maize flour prices increased by nearly 60%. CAMFED Zimbabwe continues to work with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. In 2022, CAMFED Zimbabwe drafted guidelines on safe, affordable accommodation for girls living at a distance from school, which were adopted by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, and are due to be rolled out for all schools

Together we are...

INSPIRING GIVING IN OTHERS T

Salma Dhliwayo, from Zimbabwe, is one of 254,470 members of the CAMFED Association who are supercharging the financial support we provide vulnerable children. There were 46,500 new members in 2022 alone. Each member, on average, is financially supporting another three girls through school — what we call the “multiplier effect” of girls’ education.

he multiplier effect starts from that one action of lending someone a hand when they’re at school.

A girl can be facing challenges like I was, going through difficult experiences, and then a CAMFED Association member comes to them and says, “I can help you.” Knowing that your challenges are worth noticing, you’re worth helping, having someone care about you and support you to get financial assistance — it means a lot and makes you want to help others in return.

It’s something that we do as a sisterhood. We help each other. You should not only live for yourself, you should also live to help others — to help others be there for others.

I started volunteering with the Association when I was doing my A-levels, supported by CAMFED, and then started going out into the community, helping children, young people and the elderly who were struggling. By the time I left for college, I couldn’t see a future where I wasn’t doing something to help the less privileged.

I didn’t have financial capacity back then, but was able to provide social support and over time I have built my financial capacity to help more children.

Today, I have a pig and poultry farm, a retail agribusiness, and a partnership in a bakery. I started out supporting eight children on a full time basis, providing accommodation, school fees, and everything else. I could see the impact was very great, so I registered as a foster parent with the Ministry of Social Welfare, and over the years I’ve now fostered 15 children and financially supported 85. I’ve mentored more than 200 young women through university.

Getting the support I did really touched something in me, and I feel that one seed that was planted is responsible for all the things that I’m doing now.

Together we are...

FUELING A FLYWHEEL

Dr. Bob McDowell, a leading pharmaceutical scientist and CAMFED donor, talks about the impact of the multiplier effect that CAMFED Association members like Salma create, and what he hopes their model of community giving can do for Africa’s future.

Something CAMFED does really well is enable girls to step into roles that may be bigger than anyone in the organization could ever have imagined. And what I’m seeing is that a lot of these women are enabling not only their own success, but that of their communities. It’s a flywheel that picks up momentum, keeps going, and everybody gets uplifted. It’s one of the most exciting things about CAMFED — this isn’t linear growth, the number of girls who are being supported, it’s exponential, and that speaks volumes to me.

I spent some formative years in Somalia and, although it was a country that had enormous challenges, it also had incredible resilience. All the tribes would get together every year, reconcile their differences, and figure out how they would get through the next year together. That was an inspiring model to witness as a kid, a model of community, of people supporting each other. And it stood in stark contrast to what I experienced later, when I moved to the United States for college. So I thought that if I was ever in a position to try to give back to communities like those that helped nourish me as a child, that gave me my values, I’d want to do so.

When I started looking for organizations to support, I was looking for those focused on enabling local initiatives and empowering communities. Not the classic charity model, but more saying, “How do you give communities the tools to do what they want, and then get out of their way?” Because who better than the people in the communities to say, “Okay, this is what success would feel like for us.” Defining what success means looks very different if you’re sitting in the village, rather than sitting looking at a spreadsheet somewhere far away.

I looked at a lot of organizations, and CAMFED clearly shared this value. What I liked was the sensitivity to the needs of individuals and communities, to listening first to learn what the needs were. And to not only providing tools to help girls get an education, but also help them to come back and raise up the next generation. Again, it’s that flywheel effect, one generation bringing up the next — that really sold me.

I‘m so impressed by youth movements in Africa. They have a great idea of how they want to create their future, we just need to get out of their way and let them do it. And I believe that Africa can demonstrate a model of collaborative governance that can serve as a beacon for us all. If people start to see commitment to community as a model for how a society can work, oh my gosh, we can all move forward so much faster.

It excites me to think about taking a snapshot of the communities that CAMFED is working with today and looking again in five years’ time. Five years from now, I bet I’m going to be thrilled with the progress, not only as a result of these girls’ individual leadership, but CAMFED’s model of collaborative nurturing and what it can produce.

Together we are...

PAVING THE WAY FOR IMPACT

Transition guidance, and the mentorship of my Association sisters, paved the way for me to start something. Through it, I decided to venture into entrepreneurship, to stand up as an independent woman and make an impact on society.

After secondary school, everybody was saying they had applied for this or that tertiary education course. But, unfortunately, I had no financial backing at the time, and my mother told me to wait a year to see if I could go too. So I know how it feels to graduate from school and be confused about the future.

Then I took part in CAMFED’s Transition Program and started to feel this year was actually an opportunity to do things that would make my situation better. If you have the opportunity to be guided in how to make your own decisions, it’s amazing how you grab it. I had always had problems with commercial hair products and decided to teach myself to make natural hair products. After a year, when I got to university to study IT — funded through CAMFED’s MasterCard Foundation collaboration — I was running a business of my own, and I’m still running it today.

Three years ago, I decided to become a Transition Guide myself because I’d felt the impact of it. When you can see Association members around you, your fellow sisters who have been there before, guiding you into the real world, it’s very important. As a Guide, we talk to young women about their options, give advice about how to achieve their goals, and we stay in touch after the program. We always feel proud of them.

Alongside my work as a Transition Guide, I also run a small organization which supports rural children with IT training, and provides them with stationery. I’m very motivated to give back to society. I think it started at junior high school when I was told I was going to get CAMFED support. It was really exciting to get this kind of support, and I remember asking myself, “What am I going to do to pay it back?”

As a young woman leading young women, I believe it is of key importance that we are supported and motivated. All the CAMFED women around the globe are working hard for our younger sisters, so that they can come up along with us. Women are the fountain of life. We can inspire, and we can support — we can do it.

Adelaide Dede Abaidoo, from Ghana, is one of the 4,000 Association members who dedicated their time to volunteering as Transition Guides last year. Here she explains how the Transition Program helped her see adversity as opportunity.

Transition Guides provide advice and support to recent school graduates, giving information on potential next steps such as tertiary education, finding employment, and setting up and running a business. The Association is on track to more than double in size this decade, and we aim to triple the number of active Guides by 2030

Ghana Country Context

Ghana has been facing its worst economic crisis in a generation, characterized by inflation, debt burden, and the depreciation of the local currency, the cedi, which in 2022 lost 40% of its value against the dollar. As part of it’s regular collaboration with the Ghana Education Service, last year CAMFED Ghana contributed to the government’s draft Gender in Education Policy, which seeks to mainstream gender equality at all levels of education in Ghana. Together we are...

BUILDING LIVELIHOODS Together we are...

Business Guides bring specialist knowledge of enterprise development to their peers in the CAMFED Association. Esther Naanbir is one of almost 2,700 who are currently cascading their business expertise to others. She works in agro processing and cosmetics manufacturing in Ghana, and she’s the founder and president of a shea butter cooperative with 800 members. Here she explains why her work as a Business Guide is her greatest source of pride.

One of the most important things for motivation is to know that someone expects something of you.

I’ve benefited from somebody helping me, so while I have the privilege to be able to do it, I’ll continue to support others. And it’s very important to help women because when they make their money they look after their families.

This year, through CAMFED’s Business Guide program, I’m mentoring 45 young women. Last year it was 55, and many others also asked for my support. We speak on the phone regularly, have site visits, and arrange group meetings.

All my life I’ve been selling — from day one I learned how to earn money! I teach my mentees about managing accounts, to make sure they know if they are making a profit or a loss, about marketing, and where to sell their products. Some are running businesses that are not in my field, so I connect them with people in their industry. If they are making food, I will taste it to give feedback. If it’s a product that needs packaging I will help design it, and sometimes I even buy them their first packaging. At the end, we are able to come out with a nice product and they are proud that they have something good to sell.

If my mother had been given this kind of opportunity, she would have been able to give us a better life. My first encounter with CAMFED was at the market in my village, where I would help her after school. One day two young ladies approached and said, “Small girl come here. Why are you selling in your uniform?” I took them to meet my mother, and from that time on CAMFED came to bring me school materials, and later supported me to go to technical university. After that, I started a business making moringa oil cosmetics, and went on to win awards for my work.

But the thing I’m most proud of is the bond I have with my mentees.

“We invest in CAMFED because we feel that real change can be achieved through the education of girls and — whereas other organizations support girls’ education — CAMFED specializes in it.”

Maurice McQuillan

Lifes2good Foundation, founded by James and Maria Murphy, this year shifted the focus of its partnership with CAMFED in Malawi from school-level support to enterprise development. Maurice McQuillan, the Foundation’s CEO, explains why.

At the outset of our partnership with CAMFED in 2018, we were focused on supporting a cohort of girls through four years of secondary school. The highlight was a visit to Malawi with James, to see change happening, and to witness firsthand those stories of change among the girls going through the system. A group of the girls had prepared a special song called “Lifes2good” for James, and he reciprocated with a rendition of “Danny Boy”!

As well as being a philanthropist, James is an entrepreneur and businessman. He saw how women-owned micro-enterprises could not only

provide a source of income for women, but also its impact on girls’ education, as women earning money from their businesses dedicate some of it to help other girls access education. His experience in Malawi helped us decide that, rather than start to support a new cohort of students once the first left secondary education, we would continue with the same group and shift the focus to their post-school enterprise development.

Our journey with CAMFED has evolved alongside the cohort of girls we first reached. I have every hope and expectation that they will flourish in this next phase.

Malawi Country Context

In March, Cyclone Freddy hit southern Malawi causing loss of life and destroying homes, livelihoods and infrastructure. The cyclone displaced over 660,000 people and impacted an estimated 2.6M. The cyclone struck ten districts where CAMFED Malawi operates, and Association members volunteered on the frontline of relief efforts. In 2022, CAMFED Malawi was invited by the Ministry of Education to lead development of national Child Protection Guidelines via community consultation and partnership with UNICEF. The Ministry of Education now plans to roll out the guidelines across all Malawi primary schools.

Since 2020, more than 64,000 women-owned businesses have been supported by CAMFED Business Guides. By the end of the decade, we aim for this number to stand at 241,000. Together we are...

Together we are...

ALWAYS MEASURING WHAT WORKS — AND WHY

Together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), we are undertaking a new research project to measure the social return on investment of CAMFED’s work in enterprise development. Here, LSHTM’s Dr. Meghna Ranganathan discusses the importance, and hidden difficulties, of mapping impact in this depth.

Why is it important to think about SROI?

Social Return on Investment (SROI) tells the story of how change is created by certain activities and actions. It measures social, environmental and economic outcomes and uses monetary values to represent them. This enables us to calculate a ratio of benefits to costs. For example, that an investment of $1 delivers $3 of social value.

The key feature of SROI is about value, rather than money. Money is simply a common unit — and a useful and widely accepted way of conveying value. But SROI is much more than just a number. It’s a story about change, one on which to base decisions, that includes case studies and qualitative, quantitative, financial, and economic information.

We arrived at a preliminary calculation of CAMFED’s SROI during the scoping phase for a four-year study beginning next year. Over the course of this study, we will collect data to build further robustness into this preliminary calculation and, by 2027, produce a rigorous new metric with which CAMFED can both communicate the progress of its next strategic phase and plan for the future.

What are some of the hidden challenges of measuring SROI?

The features of CAMFED’s program that make it comprehensive and highly effective are also what make it complex to evaluate. There are very specific entry points to ensure that the most marginalized girls are not left out of CAMFED interventions and to help them navigate barriers to independent and successful lives. Layering in a rigorous evaluation to ensure that we identify girls at the right stage — for instance, post-secondary education — alongside identifying a comparison group to measure CAMFED’s impact, is challenging. Another hidden challenge is that not every outcome can be valued — or, at least, not all that easily! But that’s also exciting, as we have a real opportunity to showcase this program using innovative, rigorous and pragmatic approaches.

What’s unique about our research partnership?

Very often, evaluations are designed and proposed to funders without consulting participants. However, in this partnership, we learned quickly that workshops had to be co-designed and led by local staff, and that they were key to leading.

We organized participatory workshops with CAMFED International, Tanzania and Zimbabwe staff, CAMFED Association members and government stakeholders to identify key evaluation components. We asked stakeholders what they want measured, and who they wanted to reach with the findings. By working together to define outcomes, everyone feels part of the project, and it also ensures that the evaluation is measuring what is most important to the experts in the room — the girls themselves.

MAKING THE SYSTEM WORK FOR ALL CHILDREN

CAMFED is leveraging its deep-rooted partnerships with governments to accelerate the scale and depth of its impact. Over the last year, Lydia Willbard, CAMFED Executive Director – Learning & Engagement, has been developing our systems change agenda to pave the way for national adoption of our best practices. Here she discusses the triumphs and challenges of this work in Tanzania and Zambia with Mary Wandia, Director of Programs, Africa at Co-Impact.

LW: How would you describe what we mean by systems change?

MW: Well, if you look at how life is structured, how decisions are made, how resources are allocated, our lives are organized by systems. You have water systems, health systems, political systems. The problem is they can use ineffective approaches and discriminate against certain groups. To make impactful changes in people’s lives, you need to change systems. In terms of CAMFED’s work ensuring girls are able to complete secondary school, the goal is building education systems that are effective in supporting girls to learn. And that are intrinsically just and inclusive so that, for example, when a girl drops out of school, why that’s happened will be addressed and every effort made to ensure the girl comes back.

LW: Currently, 95% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa don’t complete secondary school because systems are not set up to accommodate them, as they operate with tickbox infrastructures that don’t address barriers. For instance, you cannot go to school unless you have new shoes and uniforms of a specific style and color, so many girls can’t benefit from education as there’s no recognition of those with financial barriers.

MW: Exactly. Girls are excluded because of lack of funds, lack of menstrual wear, and there are barriers to re-entry for those who have experienced pregnancy. But, by working with governments, we can arrive at a point where, from policy-making level down to school level, these things are addressed, and there is equality for girls in the classroom, with questions like, “Are teachers reinforcing negative stereotypes?” being asked.

LW: We also know that, to give every marginalized girl the best chance of staying in and completing school, we need to build support for individuals into the system, to provide vulnerable students with trusted points of contact, and guidance in life skills. And that’s why we’re working with governments on the nationwide adoption of the Learner Guide program.

MW: And really, that model is an example of why CoImpact works with partners like CAMFED that have developed evidence-based approaches. Testing the model has proven that having a female mentor to impart life skills to a girl in school, support them outside it, and work with teachers if they drop out, leads to an increase in retention and completion. Imagine if every girl had access to that support.

LW: And every boy will benefit too. When Guides run the My Better World curriculum in the school timetable, both boys and girls are in the classroom. So, it’s shifting gender perceptions — boys gain knowledge of girls’ experiences and what they are capable of. But, as they take part in the sessions and learn about things like boosting self confidence and building resilience, they also understand themselves better. It’s unlocking a different generation of girls and boys.

MW: Integrating the My Better World curriculum changes norms and narratives — and not just for the children. In Tanzania, teachers have told us, “We don’t know what magic it is that CAMFED does.” Some have even said they’ve borrowed manuals from Learner Guides, because they want to start teaching the curriculum themselves.

LW: But there are challenges, of course. There’s a challenge, for example, in terms of tracking the norms and narratives that are changing, and creating a framework that can accurately capture those vital but subtle shifts in mindset.

MW: Yes, systems change can be messy. You will likely have changes of government during implementation periods. You can work for years to get a stakeholder onboard, then one day find they’ve been transferred, and it’s back to the drawing board. That’s why Co-Impact doesn’t tie partners to specific activities, because things will change. What we are interested in is outcomes — as long as you don’t lose sight of that, you can just adapt how to achieve it. CAMFED is a good example. It’s had a vision for 30 years. How many changes of government have there been in that

time? But because there’s strategic coherence, you can adapt the approach without changing the outcome you want.

LW: It’s fundamental to be open to shifting your organizational mindset. While CAMFED implements its own model, we control all the elements within it. But when others join us to roll it out at national level, there will be adjustments and changes. The key thing is not to lose sight of what will be unlocked. Yes, some of the approach might change. But rather than reaching thousands of people with a model that’s 100% ours, isn’t it better to have a model that’s 80% ours and reaching millions?

Our goal for the decade is to reach at least another 10M children with high quality education solutions and through national adoption of our best practices. Through our groundbreaking partnership with global philanthropic collaborative Co-Impact, launched in December 2022, we hope to achieve full national adoption of the Learner Guide program in Tanzania and Zambia within seven years. We aim to see a 15% increase in national school completion in Tanzania and 24% in Zambia. We are also testing the replicability of CAMFED’s model in a sixth country.

Together we are...

SEEDING THE SKILLS FOR FOOD SECURITY

To help young people and their communities to thrive, build climate resilience and plan green careers, CAMFED is working with Ministries of Education, young people and other expert partners to rollout a new climate education curriculum.

Climate-relevant units newly incorporated in our My Better World curriculum cover topics such as: understanding climate change; evaluating risks and staying safe; being climate smart (with practical actions for adjusting to the effects of climate change, protecting the environment and reducing carbon emissions); and planning for green careers. This is in addition to the climate-resilience skills Learner Guides already build, such as decision making, creativity and problem solving. We are currently working with the ministries of education in Zambia and Zimbabwe to approve the enhanced climate curriculum for use in schools.

Beyond school, CAMFED’s Agriculture Guide program leverages expertise in indigenous and innovative climate-smart practices to build community resilience, improve food security and promote secure livelihoods through “agripreneurship”. Guides use a “knowledge cascade” model to share information directly with CAMFED Association peers, who then coordinate with them to reach the wider community. This includes “forgotten” female farmers, who are typically excluded from technical assistance, parent groups providing school meals, and young people. The Agriculture Guide program has so far reached over 100,000 people.

It is our goal with these targeted, cost-effective solutions, to ensure that by 2030, girls, women, and rural communities in subSaharan Africa are more resilient to the challenges of climate change.

By 2030 we aim to reach 3.4M people with our climate education program, supporting them to build climatesmart livelihoods and improve resilience, food security, and prosperity.

Dr. Christina Kwauk is a social scientist and policy analyst with expertise in girls’ education. Here, she shares some reflections on the eight months she spent as a participant observer in the development of CAMFED’s climate education curriculum for learners in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Communities in sub-Saharan Africa are already suffering an increasing regularity and strength of climate shocks, but when you look at the modelling for 30 or 50 years from now, that’s when things become really scary. So how do we not become gloomy and just give up? We begin to break down the problem into something more manageable, and think, “Okay, well, what can we do now?”

Education has a huge role to play in this, and I can attest that CAMFED’s climate change curriculum is one of a kind, and that its process of development can and should serve as a model for others for being both socially inclusive and based on local needs.

Before I came on board, CAMFED had done needs assessments with young women, setting the tone in terms of being responsive to what the existing educational state is in those contexts, and what young women and adolescent girls are experiencing. Government stakeholders were also closely involved, which is essential when developing new curricula because otherwise it can be received as a critique of what is or isn’t already provided. Their involvement in the process also fast-tracks the take-up after piloting, testing and validating.

My role was to help build in content that captures the scientific dimensions, and what we know is effective practice. It’s very practical and builds a breadth of important green skills.

The opportunity to witness the development of this curriculum brings me hope that, through collective and inclusive action, we can orient our work in global education to build the knowledge, skills, capacity, and agency to face this challenge head on.

In 2019, CAMFED won the United Nations Global Climate Action Award for the effectiveness and scalability of the Agriculture Guide initiative.

Together we are... GREATER THAN THE SUM OF OUR PARTS

CAMFED Association member, Ruth Biemba Lwila, now works for the Government of Zambia, as Head of the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise Development for Western Province. Her role requires bringing people together, a skill she’s proud to have learned from her sisters in the network.

Change happens faster when different organizations work together. For example, if I am working with an agriculture cooperative, my Ministry runs leadership, governance and entrepreneurship training, while the Ministry of Agriculture teaches crop management, and an NGO may do entrepreneur training.

My experience with the CAMFED Association sisterhood gave me my first exposure to the power of a network, the power of working together. It was after I left school. I had been a very good student but, towards the end of high school, I experienced an early pregnancy and didn’t achieve the grades I should have. At that point, I couldn’t see a bright future because I had no stable income, and no hope of furthering my education. It was difficult just to find meals. Then I met two young women

leaders, Mwangala and Mwelwa, from the CAMFED Association. They told me their stories, which were not much different from mine, and it really inspired me.

I took part in a CAMFED business development program and was given some money to invest in an enterprise of my own, selling women’s clothing. I used the profits to resit my school exams and, with CAMFED support, went to university to major in business management. I later gained a Masters in Development Studies and a diploma in Teaching Methodology.

In all I do, the CAMFED Association remains a light that will continue shining, and it will never die. The support they gave me has put me in a position to help others. I am who I am because of CAMFED’s support.

I would humbly request that donors see us, me and my Association sisters, and see what their contribution makes possible. What their love makes possible. We are living testimonies that CAMFED is really working.

Last year, CAMFED opened its first climate-smart agriculture training farm in Chinsali, Zambia, at which CAMFED Association agriculture experts are providing young people with the skills and knowledge they need to sustainably grow nutritious food, and build community resilience to climate change. The demonstration farm was established on 254 hectares of land gifted to the women of the CAMFED Association by the late Senior Chief Nkula, leader of the Bemba people in the Chinsali district.

Harriet Cheelo, a CAMFED Zambia Agriculture Officer who spent a year on site, calls Chinsali “a laboratory for climate-smart agriculture”. The

150 young women working on the farm are experimenting to fine-tune the very best practices for marginalized women farmers to follow, and doing so in an environment free from the fear that experimentation might mean food insecurity.

The activities being carried out include crop cultivation, beekeeping, and poultry and fish farming, and already more than 800 community members in the surrounding area have been reached by the women as they pass on skills and techniques refined on the demonstration farm.

Zambia Country Context

Announcing a new five-year strategic plan to strengthen food systems in Zambia, the World Food Programme noted that malnutrition-related stunting rates in Zambia remain among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. This despite governmental efforts including increasing safety-net programs to improve food security for more than 3M people. CAMFED is drafting a new MoU with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries to support collaboration on the Agriculture Guide program.

Together we are... CONFRONTING COMPLEX CHALLENGES

Across the region, pregnancy is among the most frequent reasons for girls dropping out of school, with a 2019 United Nations study finding that, among the poorest women, 41% had given birth before the age of 18. In contexts where girls are at risk of sexual exploitation, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases proliferate.

Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is fundamentally intertwined with gender equality, social justice, economic development, and climate resilience. A new partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation is allowing CAMFED to enhance and grow understanding of current SRH action, provision and need, in collaboration with ministries of health, education, youth and gender. Shungu Gwarinda, CAMFED’s Executive DirectorAfrica, talks here about the imperatives and sensitivities of this work.

SRH education increases agency and decision making, giving girls power over their own bodies and futures. However, there is an urgent lack of such information available in the rural communities where CAMFED works. Efforts to increase access to — and supply of — contraception, and to improve policies that allow adolescent mothers to return to school, do not in isolation respond to the many complex and deeply-rooted reasons for unwanted pregnancy and permanent school drop-out. It is imperative that solutions are integrated, and respect the identity, rights, experiences, freedoms and aspirations of rural communities.

CAMFED’s approach to reproductive rights and responsibilities has a proven track record. An external evaluation, completed in Zambia in

2021, found that 42% fewer girls dropped out of education due to pregnancy and marriage if attending schools supported by CAMFED’s Guides. The benefits also extend beyond school, with Association members shown to marry later, and have smaller, healthier families.

But, given the dearth of effective solutions that attend to women’s holistic needs, we can — and must — do more. With the support of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, we are designing and piloting an enhanced SRH program to be taught by Transition Guides in Ghana and Tanzania, and working with government partners and other organizations to identify gaps in provision and build the evidence base around what works. We aim to demonstrate the efficacy of this program, and formalize our efforts to advance women’s decisionmaking power around marriage and motherhood.

Fustina Fynn-Nyame, Executive Director - Africa, for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), has worked in the health and education sectors for over 20 years. Here she discusses the essential ingredients for tackling the complex, interrelated issues that adolescent girls face.

We know that in international development, change takes time, and it takes working together. Don’t let anyone tell you this work is easy or straightforward!

The challenges that African girls face are interrelated, and solutions need to be integrated and centered around the girl and her evolving needs – education, community norms, livelihoods and health. CAMFED’s focus on the full journey of an adolescent girl and her needs is really compelling in this respect. Measuring impact is also key for long-term change. It is critical to CIFF that CAMFED measures impact and is — with the support of governments and alumnae — sustainably scaling what works, which is key for long-term change. And it’s also imperative to make space for expansion and innovation — a tricky balance to strike.

That’s why our partnerships also need to be grounded in transparency and trust. In our partnership with CAMFED we have open communication to navigate challenges and maintain a long-term commitment to achieving our shared goals. We value each other’s perspectives and expertise, and share learning. And fundamentally, we believe we are investing in sustainable change. CAMFED’s distinctive relationship with its alumnae increases the impact of its work, which is deeply impressive as it shows true local ownership, and also means that funding goes much further than in many non-profit implemented programs.

We’re excited to keep developing our partnership with the CAMFED in the coming years.

Angie Murimirwa, CEO of CAMFED (center left), Chris Hohn, Founder of CIFF (center), and Faustina Fynn-Nyame (center right) during a visit to CAMFED Zimbabwe in January

Together we are...

GIVING CREATIVELY

Tackling the world’s biggest problems takes partners who are open to new ways of giving, so that they can continue having maximum impact. In these pages, we explore some of the creative collaborations started this year.

Lisa Keenan, Executive Director at MECCA M-Power, explains why the leading beauty retailer in Australia and New Zealand has realigned its philanthropic partnership with CAMFED to funding without milestones.

In 2023, CAMFED helped us reach our six-year goal to educate 10,000 young women — two years early. Then we were faced with the decision about where we were headed next with M-Power.

We try to apply as much of our business model as we possibly can to our philanthropy, thinking about partner and brand acquisition in similar ways. We ask ourselves: What’s the need or problem that has to be addressed? Is there a leader that we passionately believe in, a strategy we can get behind? What does the governance look like?

We looked again at CAMFED’s strategy, governance and leadership, and we chose to move forward with untied, multi-year funding with no expectation of having to hit X or Y milestone.

It’s unusual for a corporate partnership to give unrestricted funding, but I can’t understand why more people don’t do it, because if you go to the trouble of doing due diligence on an organization, buying into their strategy, buying into their capacity to execute on something, why not? Would you buy a dog and then bark yourself?

It comes down to a value underpinning both our organizations — humility. Because what CAMFED recognized very early on is a philosophy MECCA shares, that something can only be successful if the person giving the initial push is humble enough to know when to step back and allow somebody else to step forward.

“Girls’ education is one of the greatest levers we could pull to be able to influence wider change. The way that CAMFED supports girls through school and beyond — to have an enormous impact on their communities — it’s not just the gateway to unlocking Africa’s potential, it provides a case study for leadership globally.”

Lisa Keenan

“Increasingly, people want to work for a business that they can be passionate about. When we survey our people and ask what matters to them, it’s our growth story, our focus on climate change and our focus on women’s empowerment and economic independence. It is important we use our platform to do good things in the world, and leave a legacy we can be proud of, and CAMFED really resonates with our values.

Last year we held our first fundraising gala, ‘Purpose Beyond Service’, to raise money for four partner organizations. We also organized a trek to Everest base camp, which our CEO, Peter Hughes, took part in alongside a mix of employees from 16 different locations around the world. The public engagement was phenomenal, and it gave colleagues at all levels of seniority the chance to come together and celebrate a shared passion for CAMFED’s work and our collective commitment to meaningful change.”

Rosie Guest, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, APEX Foundation

“It’s important for us that the social aspect of our work is more than just handing out money, and instead about investing in communities in a way that makes things better in the long run. We chose to work with CAMFED because it’s aligned with these values, and we want our customers to easily relate to the social work that we do. The School Days program allows us to communicate the impact we’ve had very clearly; it’s a short distance between what we are doing and the young women that benefit. We tie our giving to newsletter sign-ups, and donate €1 for every sign-up we get. From a business perspective, it’s good for us, because it encourages people to join the newsletter, and from a social perspective it’s great because it means it’s just positive impact — you don’t have to buy anything to donate.

The School Days model hasn’t just made it easy to show customers what we’re doing; it’s also good on a personal level too. I think that, when you are running a company, you get very caught up in operations, in what you’re doing and how you can improve it and so on. But then when you see the number of school days you’ve raised you stop and think, wow, 80,000, that’s actually quite incredible. And you realize all these little, incremental steps you’ve taken can add up to huge things.”

Gustav Lidén, Co-founder of footwear and leather goods company, Flattered

Together we are...

PROMOTING WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP

This year, we opened the doors of the CAMFED Leadership and Training Center in Harare, Zimbabwe, funded by a legacy gift from one of our long-time supporters, Tony Welsh. Here, Tony’s son, Adam, talks about how it feels to see the lasting impact his father has made.

I’ve been blown away by what my father’s money has been able to achieve. He wasn’t one of the mega-rich, so you don’t think it’s the sort of money that would allow for the kind of impact he has had. It makes me think that this is something that all of us should be striving to do. Even though we might not have the kind of wealth that we think of as being world changing, relatively small amounts can make a big difference, and it’s very empowering to know that.

Funding education in areas where it’s needed is fitting, given his life experience. He was not from a welloff background, his parents were working class and his father died when he was young. But he was very academically inclined, loved learning, and he managed to get a really good scholarship to go to school and eventually got into Wadham College, Oxford. He understood that he had been given some breaks that allowed him to move forward, and that they were all about education.

The Leadership and Training Center is also a great fit for who he was. As CEO of the software company he founded with his friend, leadership was a skillset he had to learn — not always so willingly. He loved coding, but was a modest person, and very shy in some ways, so the leading part did not come naturally. It makes sense that he would be keen to support this project, because he understood that leadership is something you have to learn, a skillset people have to master if they want to get to a certain point.

I think about him on a daily basis, and it gives me a lot of comfort to think about the mark he’s made. It makes his loss a little bit more bearable. In a way, although he’s obviously not with us anymore, it feels like he’s still having an ongoing impact. It’s something I look forward to talking about with my kids. They’re still quite young, but I’ve already shown them some pictures, and it’s been really nice to be able to explain that my father has left a legacy.

School graduates joining the CAMFED Association peer support and leadership network have the social and knowledge capital they need to establish secure livelihoods and take up positions of influence. Twenty-three years after joining the Association, Desire Munharira is Chief Law Officer in the Legal Aid Directorate department of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. She is one of almost 69,000 members now holding positions of influence in the pan-African network.

As a woman who has reached a leadership position, I know that having more women in leadership positions will really change how things are done in sub-Saharan Africa. We don’t just push for the needs of women – we want to break the curse of poverty for everyone.

When I finished primary school in 1995, I wanted to go on to high school, but my mother was a single parent of four children and struggling to make ends meet. Then I was chosen for CAMFED support. It was a big change, because I went to boarding school, where you have everything you need — three proper meals a day, your own bed, your own blankets.

On top of this, I think for me it was life changing because I met people from different backgrounds and saw other ways of life. It gave me something to aspire to. Then, once I started interacting with my sisters in the CAMFED Association, something else also raised within me — I learned about giving back. After studying law at university, I joined the Ministry of Justice, in the Legal Aid department.

We assist around 1,500 clients per month, mostly women with cases like domestic violence, estate disputes, divorces, and land disputes. The root of the cause of the problems for most women who come to our organization is a lack of financial empowerment. You cannot empower yourself if you cannot get your own money. As well as providing my experience as a legal practitioner, I also use my own life experience to try and counsel these women so that, when they leave our office, they can empower themselves. In these moments, I am an Association member.

I do my work with passion because I understand those who are disadvantaged in society. I always tell myself, “If this person had not come to this organization, a great injustice would have been done.” If I don’t help them, who will? And, because someone once helped me, I want to give back. It really goes to the center of my heart.

I am a product of CAMFED. Look at what the assistance has done for me — it took me from the dust and it lifted me up to a place where I can help change things for others. But there are many more poor girls. If a donor assists one girl, it will break the cycle of poverty in that family. So I encourage donors to keep doing this noble thing by assisting girls: an empowered girl child will lead to a powerful nation.

Together we are... DREAMING BIG

In July, Drew and Mary Ellen Weissman sponsored 14 CAMFED students to study for two weeks at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. Here, Mary Ellen explains what motivated them.

When our circumstances changed a lot recently, Drew and I found ourselves committed to investing in causes and people we cared about to do some good in the world. We had to decide what that meant for us. Given my own background, and being a child psychologist, I have a deep understanding of just how vital it is for young adults to have readily available opportunities for secondary and higher education.

After meeting CAMFED at an award ceremony in Spain, the idea of bringing students over to study in the US seemed the perfect idea. In addition to providing the students with academic opportunities, it was important to me that they had the chance to experience things they otherwise wouldn’t. I wanted to encourage them to dream big and expand their horizons.

When the trip first started, I was struck by the students’ shyness. However, over the course of their stay, I saw these wonderful young women develop the self confidence to take ownership

of their new situation. They were blossoming before my eyes and embracing the change. It was absolutely amazing and really highlighted just how important what we were doing was.

One of my favorite things was being part of quite a few firsts for the students. Aside from the new academic opportunities, I watched them experience things like meeting people from different walks of life, flying in an airplane – even riding a roller coaster! I had some fascinating conversations with the young women about their lives and what they planned to do once they got home and was very impressed by how keen they were on using this opportunity to inspire other girls who hadn’t taken part.

My hope is that the experience has helped these young women gain a sense of empowerment and agency, an understanding of their right to belong and thrive in any academic or career space they encounter, and a deeper belief in their own incredible potential.

It was also a huge learning experience for me, one I found very enriching.

Tinotenda, 17-year-old high school student, Zimbabwe

I enjoyed so many things about the summer program at the University of Pennsylvania. First of all, boarding the plane was just amazing. When it ascended, when it descended, I just loved everything — even the food that was served. And then when we arrived at the campus where we stayed, it was such a beautiful place.

I attended two courses. The first one was Introduction to Medicine, and we learned about American students visiting hospitals to see their patients, and studied many medical articles. We met a biologist and a microbiologist and asked them questions like, “How did you do this? How did you do that? What influenced you to do it?” They gave us words of motivation, and told us things about what you should do and should not do in the field of medicine.

The second course I took was Pathology, where we studied diseases and pathogens, what causes them, how we prevent, control and cure them. I partnered with young women from China, Australia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe to study Plasmodium falciparum, which is the causative agent of malaria.

At one of the labs we visited, a scientist asked if a volunteer wanted to wear the equipment used for researching COVID-19, and I raised my hand. There were big white boots and a very big suit. On my head was something like a plastic bag connected to an oxygen machine. It was just amazing.

I met different people from different parts of the world and heard about their cultures, and I told them about ours, how we dress and the types of religions we have in our country, the types of foods that we eat. I showed them pictures and they were amazed, and said, “You have such beautiful places in your country, we’d love to visit!”

From this trip, I got to understand that I still have some time to make a choice about my career. I learned that there are many fields in medicine. I want to be a neurosurgeon, but there are many options. The most important thing is that I make sure I focus and pass my STEM subjects, because if I have this, I can explore many jobs, many careers. The world is in need of women in STEM subjects, and we can prove that we are capable and can compete with men.

To fulfill its mission, CAMFED relies on partnerships with philanthropic individuals who make a significant contribution to tackling the barriers to education for girls and young women. As one way of saying thank you, we invite our loyal and generous donors to join the CAMFED Circle, which affords members the opportunity to connect deeply with the impact their giving has in effecting transformative change in rural communities.

If you would like to learn how you can join the Circle, please visit camfed.org/circle or contact us at philanthropy@camfed.org

“I’m a firm believer in education and helping people. I don’t know this girl — I don’t know who she is — but I know helping girls and women’s education is really important. With that opportunity someone can grow and be a mentor to other people. There’s a glow you feel when you do something important in life — we can help somebody, and the circle goes around.”

Peter Miraglia, CAMFED donor

“As someone who has worked for several decades in international community development, I greatly admire how CAMFED leverages the initial investments in girls education to greater impact through the mentor network — where past participants support current programs. Who better to understand, support and motivate the girls in CAMFED’s programs?”

Barbara Felitti and Wayne Curley, CAMFED donors

Activist Advocate Ambassador

TO ALL

Caughlin Ryder Head of Philanthropic Engagement cryder@camfed.org