“If you care about the issues you are addressing, you understand that you must get these stories out to the public, even if the work is hard on you.”
Mwelwa Kamanda, a member of the Camfed Zambia team, was introduced to filmmaking in a participatory workshop chronicled in Camfed’s first documentary, Where the Water Meets the Sky. As one of the Samfya Women Filmmakers that emerged from that first training, Mwelwa was selected from a group of 200 people from around the world to attend a prestigious program to train activists in filmmaking for social change.
In July, Mwelwa traveled abroad for the first time to join 26 other emerging filmmakers from 24 countries including Iraq, Georgia, Indonesia, and Brazil for the nine-day Witness Video Advocacy Institute in Montreal. “It was reassuring to learn that filmmakers from other countries are struggling to bring attention to some of the same issues that we face in Zambia, although their cultures might seem very different,” says Mwelwa. “We realized that as human rights filmmakers, we are united by our desire to inspire change in our societies.” (more…)
Leading Camfed alumna Fiona Muchembere features in a thought-provoking interview about social entrepreneurship with BBC World Service presenter Peter Day.
Interviewed at the 2008 Skoll World Forum at Oxford University, Fiona talks about the power of education to transform lives and strengthen communities. With the support of Camfed, which was founded by social entrepreneur Ann Cotton in 1993, Fiona was the first girl in her rural community in Zimbabwe to attend university. After graduating as a lawyer, Fiona is now in a position to support 22 members of her family through school. (more…)
This short film features Mgata, a teacher-mentor in a school in rural Tanzania who sees it as her mission to help any girl who is on the verge of dropping out of school. Her goal: to provide them with social and financial support, enabling them to finish school and become leaders in their community. (more…)
Walter Turner, the host of KPFA Radio’s “Africa Today”, talks to Fiona Muchembere, one of Camfed’s first beneficiaries, about the manifold benefits of educating girls in rural Africa, and about the problems that arise for girls who are deprived of an education. Click on the play control below to listen to the interview.
Hear from Grammy-nominated singer songwriter and Camfed Board Member Joan Armatrading on the dramatic impact that education can have on a girl’s path in life, and on the health and education of her future family.
Doreen never went to school, and was married by age 15. In this video, she talks about how learning to make films about subjects that affect her life has given her a sense of purpose and contentment. (more…)
Share with