Guardian Development Journalism Competition

Camfed is one of eight charities that are collaborating with the Guardian in the exciting new Guardian Development Journalism Competition. The competition is open to UK-based students and freelance journalists who relish the chance to look behind the headlines and investigate why 2.7 billion people around the world are still living in poverty.

Two of the competition’s finalists – one student and one freelance journalist – will get the chance to see Camfed’s work first-hand, and to find out why educating girls and empowering women is such a crucial first step towards eradicating global poverty. Finalists’ articles will appear in a colour supplement in the Guardian in November 2008.

Why write about girls’ education?

Girls are the poorest people in the world with the least opportunities. Yet they hold the key to poverty eradication. They can transform the future of the next generation and beyond. Without education young women are five times more vulnerable to the threat of HIV/AIDS than boys their age, yet they often carry the greatest responsibility for family and community welfare.

Research shows that for every additional year of education beyond primary school, a woman’s income increases by 15%, her vulnerability to AIDS drops significantly and her risk of dying in childbirth falls.

Using your own research backed up with facts and figures, you are invited to write a 650-1,000 word article examining the impact of girls’ education on one of the following issues:

eradicating poverty
reducing child and maternal mortality
preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Resources on girls’ education

To help with your research, there is a wealth of resources available, on Camfed’s website and beyond. As a starting point, try some of the following links:

Find out how Camfed works to eradicate poverty by educating girls.
Visit the website of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, to find out about the global drive to get more girls into school.
Go to the Global Campaign for Education website.
Read UNICEF’s progress report about whether the international community is meeting its commitments to the world’s children.
Read UNICEF’s views on gender equality in schools.
Download the Department of International Development (DFID)'s girls’ education strategy.

Find out more on the Guardian’s dedicated competition page for girls’ education.

Why write about empowering young women?

In 2000, the international community agreed on eight Millennium Development Goals designed to halve global poverty by 2015. Promoting gender equality and empowering women – Millennium Development Goal number 3 – will propel all of the other goals, from reducing poverty and hunger, to saving children’s lives, improving maternal health, ensuring universal education, combating AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Educating a girl will change her life, as well as those of her future children and will ensure that she can contribute to the economic life of her community.

The young women supported through school by Camfed are now sharing the benefits of their education with their communities. They have set up their own pan-African organisation, Cama (the Camfed Association), which boasts more than 7,900 members – among them doctors, lawyers, teachers and businesswomen.

In the last year alone, these successful young women gave back to their communities by supporting 47,000 children through school out of their own pockets – a virtuous cycle that will help to break the cycle of poverty in rural Africa by giving future generations of children the chance of an education.

This is just one example of how empowering young women is creating change. Using your own research backed up with facts and figures, you are invited to write a 650-1,000 word article about why empowering women is so crucial to one of the following issues:

reducing poverty
tackling domestic violence and
combating HIV/AIDS.

Resources on women’s empowerment

To help with your research, there is a wealth of resources available, on Camfed’s website and beyond. As a starting point, try some of the following links:
Find out how Camfed is empowering young women in sub-Saharan Africa.
Read UNICEF’s report about women and children, and gender equality.
Read the Department of International Development (DFID)’s report about putting gender equality at the heart of development.
Read the UN Millennium Project reports on achieving gender equality.

Find out more on the Guardian’s dedicated competition page for women’s empowerment.

Quotes from Camfed

Camfed’s Executive Director Ann Cotton has published an article in the UN Chronicle about the importance of educating girls and women in the fight against poverty in rural Africa. To back up your research, you can quote from this article – for the purposes of this competition – as long as Ann Cotton and Camfed are attributed.

Read Ann Cotton’s article in the UN Chronicle.

If you would like to refer to some of the inspiring stories of young women’s lives that have been transformed through education, please refer to the Testimonials section of Camfed’s website. Again, you are welcome to quote from these resources for the purposes of this competition, as long as Camfed is attributed.

If you would like any more information about Camfed that you can’t find on our website, please email Vicky Anning.

Entering the competition

For more information about the Guardian International Journalism Competition, including deadlines, visit the Guardian’s competition website.

Best of luck!

The eight charities involved in this competition are Marie Stopes International, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, WaterAid, Malaria Consortium, Plan UK, Camfed International, HelpAge International, and Sightsavers International.

Share with