Camfed's Response
Camfed started its programme in Tanzania in 2005 and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education. The launch of Camfed’s programme coincided with the launch of the government programme to raise secondary enrolment from 6% to 50% by 2010.
In Tanzania, Camfed is ensuring that girls from the poorest families can benefit from the government’s investment in secondary school places, by providing school fees, clothing, and stationery for 4 years of girls’ secondary education. This support is benefiting girls like Snoda who qualified to study at one of the newly constructed secondary schools but knew that her family would not be able to afford the school-going costs.
In a context where large numbers of vulnerable children are coping with family bereavement as a result of AIDS, Camfed trains female teacher mentors to provide psycho-social support to improve girls’ attendance and performance. Teacher mentors are important female role models in secondary schools where female teachers are the minority. Safety Net Fund grants enable schools to take practical action to support vulnerable children to stay in school by providing vital school clothing and stationery.
Camfed is working with local communities to reduce the migration of girls as domestic workers through local and national awareness campaigns and direct action to support vulnerable girls. In Iringa, girls who cannot afford secondary education seek domestic work in the cities as housegirls where they are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and many return to their villages pregnant or infected with HIV. With support for girls’ school-going costs guaranteed, community activists are bringing vulnerable girls back to school before they are exposed to these risks.
In partnership with a government bursary programme, the Girls’ Secondary Education Support programme Camfed is supporting young women school leavers to become economically independent in a context of high rural unemployment levels. Demand for business training and micro-credit is high, and with support from Cama Zimbabwe, the network has grown from 30 to 490 members across 7 districts. 131 of these young women have been trained in business skills, and a further 78 have received either grants or loans to start up their own businesses.
Cama members are reinvesting in their communities by ensuring that vital health information is reaching remote rural areas. These young women are leading awareness raising and tackling stigma around HIV and AIDS in their local schools and communities. They are also supporting 980 children to go to school through their own philanthropy.
Camfed has also supported 111 young women to complete teacher training college. These young women have now taken up teaching positions in rural schools, including schools where Camfed’s programme is operating, and they are using their first hand experiences of the effects of poverty on girls’ educational access to support vulnerable girls in the school system.
Read about Camfed's impact in Tanzania in 2007.
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