Camfed opens US office

Camfed announced the opening of its first US office last month with a feature on the local San Francisco NBC channel’s Bay Area Today Show.

Camfed USA has been registered as a US non-profit organization since 2001 with a strong board of trustees. The new office will build on a broad base of donors established over the past five years including foundations, corporations, and hundreds of individual supporters.

By developing a team in the San Francisco Bay Area, Camfed USA will bring the inspiring stories of the girls and young women we work with in Africa to the US stage.

Brooke Hutchinson (pictured below right with Ann Cotton and Joe Streng), who has been working with Camfed International in the UK since 2004, has been appointed Director of Camfed USA.

“We’re thrilled to have Brooke leading this expansion,” says Ann Cotton, Camfed International’s Executive Director. “With a background in public health and research experience in Kenya and The Gambia, Brooke has been working closely with the Camfed teams in the UK and Africa over the past two and a half years. Brooke’s outstanding qualities and her firsthand experience of the potential of girls’ education to transform lives in Africa make her an exceptional leader for Camfed USA.”

Camfed is delighted to have forged an innovative partnership with Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm, to highlight girls’ education in Africa as the quickest route to poverty alleviation and stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS. Edelman is supplying pro bono office accommodation at their San Francisco office and providing communications and media outreach support across their network of offices in the US.

“Edelman is proud to be partnering with Camfed to raise awareness of the issue of girls’ education in Africa,” says Joe Streng, who is leading the Edelman team. “Camfed is demonstrating how the power of girls’ education can change lives, communities and countries. Our volunteers are committed to sharing this remarkable story with people across the country.”

Camfed’s work in the US will encourage further investment in rural girls and young women as a key to Africa’s progress.

“A teacher we work with in Zambia told me this spring that ‘the biggest support we can provide to girls is to make them feel they are someone important’. Camfed’s alumni include doctors, lawyers, teachers and businesswomen. Every one of them is where she is today because of her education and because someone believed that she was important enough to invest in her future,” says Brooke.

Please get in touch with Brooke if you are based in the US to learn more about Camfed’s work – and to find out how you can help us to invest in the future of even more girls.

Telephone (415) 979 1556 or email usa@camfed.org