Camfed is doing a Facebook Challenge to raise money to send girls in Africa to school!

Join this cause - http://www.causes.com/camfed/ and a Camfed donor has agreed to send a girl to elementary school for a month.

Then, for every friend you get to join the cause, the donor will donate enough for another month.

Convince 12 friends, and you’ll fund an elementary school student’s education for a whole year.

We need your help to reach our goal of 5,000 supporters so please, join today: http://www.causes.com/camfed/

On Monday, 1 December, the Reed Foundation is giving away £1m to UK charities. They are matching all single donations made to Camfed via the Big Give website up to the value of £5,000. Any UK charity can benefit up to the value of £20,000.

To mark World AIDS Day, please forward this article to as many friends and networks as you can. Invite them to make a donation to Camfed through the Big Give website from 9am on Monday morning to double their investment in girls’ education.

Time is of the essence because the £1m pot will shrink rapidly. And once the £1m has been spent, the matched funding will end – so it’s crucial to get the donations in as early as possible on Monday, 1 December (World AIDS Day).

Girls’ education is recognised as one of the best ways to combat poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa, so what better way to mark World AIDS Day than encouraging everyone you know to make a double investment in girls’ education?

What to do next

Please give the gift of education today

Tell a friend about this initiative

Find out more from the Big Give website

On Saturday, November 22, the Guardian published the first round of finalists’ articles from its International Development Journalism competition, which sent 16 journalists to different corners of the globe to examine the root causes of poverty. Among the articles featured was a story by Cambridge University student Elliot Ross, focusing on the issues that prevent girls from attending school in Tanzania, and on Camfed’s work to ensure that girls have access to education. Read Elliot’s article here.

Guardian editor Sue George also wrote about Camfed’s work in Tanzania in her introduction to the special supplement.

Camfed is one of eight charities that collaborated with the Guardian on this groundbreaking competition, which challenged amateur and professional journalists to investigate whether the eight Millennium Development Goals are on track to halve global poverty by 2015. The competition, which was supported by the Department for International Development (DFID), drew more than 400 applicants.
On Monday, November 24, the Guardian published the second round of finalists’ articles, including a piece by journalist Phoebe Greenwood which examines the economic challenges faced by women in rural Zambia, and highlights Camfed’s efforts to unlock opportunities for women who are born into poverty. Read Phoebe’s article here.

You can help end poverty!

In spite of world leaders’ promises to halve world poverty by 2015, many of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) they agreed to are still way off track.

• More than 1.4 billion people are still living on less than $1.25 a day;
• 70% of these people are women;
• 75 million children are still missing out on a primary education; and
• 57% of these are girls.

Camfed and our partners in the Guardian International Development Journalism Competition are urging supporters to download an action pack called “Going for Goals”.

In the pack, you will find a “Going for Goals” postcard that you can send to your local MP, urging them to put pressure on the government:

• to meet its own MDG commitments;
• to use its leadership to encourage other countries to do the same
• to make sure that the world’s trade system is fair for people everywhere.

As the global credit crunch threatens to undermine the slow progress that has been made so far towards achieving the MDGs, your support is more vital now than ever in making sure that the world’s poorest don’t get poorer.

Download the “Going for Goals” action pack now and become part of the solution in the fight against global poverty.

In the November/December 2008 issue of Mother Jones magazine, which focuses on rescuing the planet, a round-up of “ideas for saving the world on a shoestring” includes a mention on girls’ education and Camfed’s work.  You can read the piece here: LINK TK.

How, you might ask, does girls’ education help the environment? Environmentalists and development experts alike agree that one key factor in preserving the health of the planet is educating girls and creating economic opportunities for women. Studies show that educated women marry and bear children later, and have smaller, more sustainable families: young women who have completed secondary school, for example, have 2.2 fewer children than those who have not.

Education promotes sustainability in other ways as well. Research indicates that educating girls boosts farm yields, and diversifies marketplaces—both of which are considered critical steps toward ending the current world food crisis.

Earlier this year, Camfed joined forces with a visionary nonprofit called Global Footprint Network to promote the importance of educating girls in a resource-constrained world. GFN has developed a tool to measure the human impact on the planet so that governments can make more informed choices about how we use our limited resources. In December, members of the Global Footprint Network team will share their knowledge with high school graduates in rural Zambia, when Camfed and Goldman Sachs launch their 10,000 Women Certificate Program in Young Women’s Leadership and Enterprise, which will help young women develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills they need to become leaders in their communities. Watch for news on this exciting initiative in the coming months.

Camfed is delighted to have been chosen as charity partner in an exciting project with Girlguiding UK to help girls and young women across the UK to change the world.

Camfed is one of 18 top charities that will be working with Girlguiding UK’s 580,000 members to raise awareness about a range of local, national and global issues in a project called Changing the World. (more…)

Tuesday November 4 2008 was a noteworthy day not just in the United States but in the Cambridge offices of Camfed, where we spent most of the day on a lengthy Skype-call to the charity’s directors in Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. We reviewed a year’s worth of data from the field on the effects of Camfed’s work for girls’ education and women’s empowerment.

Read the full story here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a21dca4-b1da-11dd-b97a-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1