Every so often I get completely sidelined by life: Work seems all-encompassing, sleep becomes optional, and I lose all motivation to do anything but keep my head above water and hope that if I just keep going, sooner or later I'll hit dry land.
But often I don't hit dry land -- something rescues me instead. Lately, it's almost always something related to HumanKind. It happened last Friday: I was sick with a lingering cold, I was stressed out over work, and I had a 5 p.m. phone appointment to interview a human rights lawyer for Camfed, Campaign for Female Education, an organization that helps girls go to school in rural Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, and Tanzania, and expanding soon into Malawi. I didn't think I had the brain power to make intelligent conversation, but I called her anyway, hoping she'd forgive me if I asked any dumb questions.
Less than five minutes into our conversation, I was practically soaring with joy, typing as fast as I could, so excited that a person like this is out there working for good, every day. My own work headaches vanished, and by the time we got off the phone, I couldn't believe I'd ever felt anything but hopeful and energized.
So let me tell you about Camfed, human rights lawyer Fiona Muchembere, and Camfed founder Ann Cotton, in the hopes that just as it did for me, the story gives you a sudden, clear jolt of happiness, and a view of what's really possible. (Hint: awesome things.)
First, Ann Cotton: I reached her on her cell at the start of a week she spent in Davos, Switzerland, site of the World Economic Forum, and while she hunted for a cafe to sit down in, I asked her to tell me the story of her own education.
Ann grew up in Wales, the child and niece of teachers; their parents' generation had used education as a way out of work in the mines and out of poverty. No surprise here: Ann grew up and became a teacher.
"I was brought up with the sense that education was the most important thing in life; it mattered far more than money," she said.
But she noticed that not all children had what she calls the "background, or the emotional security" to make it through the school system. So, she founded and led an education center in London for girls who were excluded from the mainstream, then went on to study multi-cultural education in Massachusetts. Her career was well under way when she decided to pursue a degree in Human Rights and Education at the London Institute of Education. That led her to Zimbabwe.
"I really thought that I was going to do a study; I hadn't planned beyond that," she told me. But that study convinced her that the main reason families in rural Zimbabwe were keeping girls out of school was money. Thanks to a forced relocation to far poorer land more than 50 years earlier, the Tonga community in Nyaminyami district was in the grip of extreme poverty, and they saw boys' education as the best investment of their extremely limited funds: Boys could more easily find jobs, travel for work, and send money home. The school Ann visited had a ratio of seven boys for every girl; more girls had to drop out every year. The whole community was suffering because it couldn't afford to educate much more than half of its young people.
"I felt very strongly, by the time I got back, that I couldn't walk away. I couldn't just say, 'Thank you very much, thank you for letting me do this study, thank you for sharing all this information with me, I'm off,'" Ann said.
She made a return trip, working with teachers and asking what she could do, and eventually went with the charismatic school headmistress to see the local chief, who called a meeting.
"Literally hundreds of people came to this meeting," Ann said. "The nearest secondary school was 80 miles away, so this secondary school served a huge population. We sat in the sun and we worked out how this would work: how I could raise the money and provide support, and what the whole infrastructure would look like."
"We came up with a plan that the community devised. It was very democratic, it was very transparent. And that essentially became the Camfed model."
From that one village in 1993, Camfed has replicated that model -- one of working with local leaders and parents, creating social and economic support for girls throughout their entire education and even after graduation -- in four countries, and is expanding to a fifth, Malawi. Camfed pays about $12 U.S. per month, per child, for school and exam fees, transportation, boarding, and supplies. More than 300,900 children went to school through Camfed in 2006. (If you want to learn more, or make a donation, you can click here.)
Camfed has been so successful because of that collaborative model, says Fiona Muchembere -- she's the human rights lawyer who made me so happy on Friday. Fiona was in California to speak at Stanford University's thinkBIG conference, and she'd been in Tanzania the week before. Fiona almost didn't make it to law school; Camfed helped her through.
"Camfed works with community structures -- for example, the traditional leadership, which is the custodian of all local practices," Fiona said. This way, the program has credibility, and the community is mobilized.
"They are responsible for managing the program at a community level," Fiona said. "They are the ones who do the selection of beneficiaries, and they do the allocation of entitlements, making sure that the fees have been paid, making sure the child has uniforms and books, and making sure everyone knows their role in relation to the program."
This is Fiona's story: She is the oldest of six. Her father lost his job when she was 10, and though he was able to set aside some money for her education -- about $42, she said -- she had to make up the rest, getting up at 4:30 in the morning to sell vegetables. Her parents worked extremely hard to keep her in school for the next two years, and her teacher had high hopes she would go on to further education. A partial government scholarship helped with secondary school, but her parents ended up selling their property to pay for the rest. Despite all this, and excellent grades, Fiona was working as a cleaning lady to earn money for a university education when she met Lucy Lake, deputy executive director of Camfed.
"It was fortunate that at the school I went to there were other students being supported by Camfed," Fiona says. "I met Lucy Lake, I shared my story with her, and Camfed committed (to support my university education.) That was quite a big relief for me, and also for my family."
Today, Fiona is a lawyer working for Camfed, and a member of Cama, the alumni organization founded by women who have benefited from Camfed. Cama is about 8,000 members strong, and each one directly pays for, on average, the education of four children or young adults, often people they know personally.
"We are supporting over 25,000 vulnerable students to stay in school," Fiona says. "These really vulnerable children, they touch on our own personal experiences. These are our siblings, these are our neighbors' children."
Fiona's siblings have had more opportunities for education, too, including a brother who is getting a medical degree.
"Now I'm in a position to support them through school, and my mother does not have to struggle much any more," Fiona says. By investing in her education, Camfed invested "in the education of my whole family."
And isn't that a good definition of sustainability? A movement toward good that, once enacted, can grow on its own?
Fiona's story doesn't stop there -- with Cama and Camfed, she's educating rural communities about human rights, including on the issue of child sexual abuse. Some students turn to prostitution to get money for text books and school fees, or they stay in unsafe, thrown-together shelters because they can't afford to board at school. Fiona and others are working with local officials, parents, and the girls themselves to raise awareness of the problem and empower them to develop solutions, right down to building hostels for the girls who can't afford to board. She also helps establish health programs to educate about HIV/AIDS and ease the social stigma of the disease, all in the language of the community they're serving.
And just as important, Cama members serve as an example of what's really possible.
"All communities, like all parents, really want to send their children to school, but it's only the culture of poverty that would make them choose between whether they would send the boy to school over the girl," Fiona says. When she and others like her -- from very poor families, children who did not have social status within the community -- return and show they've finished school and are now helping others do the same, "it's got a very good ripple effect," she says, and I can hear her smiling through the phone.
Last week, in Tanzania, "we were sitting with young women, Cama members, developing strategies on what it is we can do to promote young women's economic independence, to make sure their voices are heard at every level," Fiona says. "It's so good to have young women sitting around the table and making decisions. It gives them the confidence that, if I can make decisions about how I run this program, I can make decisions about how to run my own family. It gives them status in their community."
Fiona says she's happy with the work she's done to create infrastructure to help countries continue to use the Camfed model.
"You know, it's not just about sending girls to school," she points out. "It's also about creating an environment which is sustainable, and creating structures which are accountable."
By now, Fiona and I had been talking for almost half an hour, and while she was extremely gracious, I knew she had to get going. And I knew she was probably a little tired from all that traveling. I asked her if there was anything else she wanted people to know about Camfed, and she told me this:
"Camfed, the way it invests in girls' education is an investment for the future," she said. "Promoting good health, promoting human rights, and making sure that we hold everyone, at every level, accountable, from the local community to national governments to international (organizations), to make sure they are accountable to the Millennium Development Goals.
"And also the other thing is that the network of young women, Cama members, is a living testimony of Camfed programs, and we are working, really are working very hard to make sure there is a multiplier effect."
We finally got off the phone, she thanking me for talking to her, and me trying to convince her that it was wonderful for me to hear from her. I sat down with all my notes, Fiona's kind and hopeful voice still in my ears, and I felt so full of excitement and happiness that I could hardly wait to tell you about it. I should have guessed: I wanted to tell you a story about an organization that's healing the world, and just hearing the story healed me. I think that counts as a multiplier effect.
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