Every evening, 15-year-old Rashida* returns home from school, changes out of her uniform, and rushes to a neighboring farm to help her mother harvest vegetables. Her father is disabled, so the modest profit the two of them earn must cover food, clothing and other necessities for all seven children and their parents. Despite having precious little time to study, Rashida is one of the top students at her junior secondary school. But with so much responsibility on her small shoulders, she admits that it is sometimes hard for her to imagine a more promising future.

Last year, Rashida was invited to join 155 other girls at Camfed Ghana’s first Girls’ Career Camp, a program designed to inspire girls growing up in the country’s Northern Region to dream big, and to support them to pursue those dreams. “We organized this camp because we wanted to let girls know that even if they are struggling with poverty, their lives will not be defined by limitations,” says Dolores Dickson, Camfed Ghana’s Executive Director.

Over the course of five days, the camp led the junior and secondary school students through a range of experiences and career opportunities that were entirely new to them.  Dr. Agnes Apusiga, a lecturer from the University of Development Studies, ran the workshop on goal-setting and career choices, describing the universities and training colleges in Ghana that could help them achieve their aspirations. Participants then visited the University for Development Studies, where they toured the medical school and science labs. They were taken on excursions to Tamale’s sports stadium, and to the airport, where they watched Ghana’s air force perform a series of drills – noting with surprise that there were several women among the cadets.  Another highlight was a workshop at the computer lab at Tamale Secondary School. Many of the girls had studied information technology from a book but had never before seen a computer. The students’ initial uncertainty about how to interact with the machine soon transformed into impatience and excitement, as they jockeyed for a turn at the keyboard.

“When the girls arrived at camp, they were not ambitious, because they didn’t have any idea what the world held for them,” says Eugenia Ayagiba, Project Officer with Camfed Ghana. “Many had scarcely traveled beyond their own villages.”

“I think the most important thing that happened at the camp is that we opened a window of hope for a group of girls coming from backgrounds of deprivation,” says Eugenia. For Rashida, who has been ridiculed in the past by her schoolmates because of her father’s disability, the experience was transformative. “She told one of the camp mentors that when she is at school, she often feels like a misfit, and she prefers to keep to herself,” says Eugenia. “But at the camp, it was different. She befriended girls who have similar struggles. She took part in every single activity, every single game. On the last day, she said to her mentor, ‘The camp has challenged me to study hard. Now I see that there is light at the end of the tunnel.’

*Rashida’s name has been changed to protect her privacy

For Christmas this year, Mary is visiting her brother and his wife in the town of Mbeya, three hours drive away from the home Mary shares with her mother in Iringa, in western Tanzania. Here, she talks about the way she prepares for the holidays. (more…)

When Mary was in primary school, her father passed away, leaving her mother to raise seven children by herself on her wages of $8 a week. In 2003, her house burned to the ground, and the family lost everything. Consequently, when Mary passed the exams to move up to secondary school, her widowed mother did not have the funds to send her. Mary was overjoyed when Camfed stepped in last year to provide her with all the support she needed to continue her education, including a uniform, stationery and exercise books.

Without Camfed’s support, Mary says she would probably have ended up in Tanzania’s capital looking for work as a housegirl, a fate that befalls many young women in rural Tanzania, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Instead, she is now fourth in her class of 53 students, as well as being a school prefect. Camfed will continue to support Mary for the next four years, until she has finished secondary school.

Here, in the first of several installments, Mary gives us a glimpse into her daily life in her Tanzania.
(more…)

Camfed’s work in Zimbabwe is more vital now than ever before. As the economic situation continues to deteriorate, we are seeing more and more girls and boys dropping out of school. Families are finding it increasingly difficult to support their children’s education as they struggle to put food on the table. (more…)

by Ann Cotton, Camfed founder and executive director

Angeline Mugwendere, 26, fears that almost half of her classmates from primary school in rural Zimbabwe are HIV positive by now. Some of her fellow pupils have already died from related illnesses.

The statistics are chilling. Across Zimbabwe, more than 3,000 people die each week from AIDS. The official HIV infection rate is one in four. That rate is far higher in the desperately poor rural areas, where life expectancy for women is just 34. (more…)

by Winnie Farao, Camfed Zimbabwe manager

My trip to New York was an opportunity to talk on behalf of all the girls in rural Africa – to say what they would have said if they had got the chance. I wanted to tell people not just the story of my own education, but also to tell the story of the African girls. (more…)