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History

In 1997, four years after the foundation of Camfed, the first group of girls was graduating from secondary school. Living in the Nyaminyami and Chikomba districts of Zimbabwe, their employment options were severely limited. Nyaminyami is a subsistence farming area and poor soil yields poor harvests. Chikomba is a commercial farming area where the majority work as poorly paid farm labourers.

Ann Cotton and Lucy Lake were concerned that the young school leavers would leave for town in search of work or be pressurised by their poor parents to marry. Both routes carried huge risks – in town they would be unprotected and so might well be tricked into prostitution, and early marriage held the likelihood of early motherhood. While their years of education provided real and lasting benefits, they could neither protect them nor produce the catalyst for progress of their communities if these options were taken.

This was a crossroads for the pioneer beneficiaries of the programme and for Camfed. The Camfed Board of Trustees agreed to extend Camfed’s remit into the post school years though with some reservations that the investment Camfed was making in girls’ education was being diluted. Robert Oakeshott, one of the Board members, wrote in 2003 that ‘I have never been so happy to have been proved wrong’.

Cama – the Camfed alumni - was established to give the school leavers a social framework built on the friendship circles of their school years. It also connected one to the other across district boundaries, giving its members their first insight into their problems going beyond the personal into a wider systemic pattern. Cama enabled Camfed to stay connected to graduating beneficiaries and to direct new resources to them.

Cama elected its leadership and was constituted as a member organisation in 1998. Angeline Mugwendere was the first Chair. Her acceptance speech quoted a popular African proverb: ‘If you think you’re too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito’. Prophetic words. Cama is demonstrating the power of girls’ education in young women’s leadership. Mature beyond their years because of the responsibilities that go with family poverty, each member takes the opportunity Cama presents as an opportunity to change not only her own future but the lives of her family and community. The philanthropy of Cama members is a moving testimony to their compassion and care.

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