TheSouthAfrican.com
By Jennifer Munro
18 July 2012
Young Zimbabwean girls are set to receive a better education thanks to the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) programme that was launched by MDC Senator David Coltart in Guruve last week. A British agency, the UK Department for International Development, has unveiled a US$19 million bursary fund to support the project for 24,000 disadvantaged secondary schoolgirls throughout Zimbabwe.
In her remarks at the launch ceremony, Angeline Murimirwa from Camfed, implementors of the programme, said the initiative is meant to break the vicious cycle of poverty commonly associated with the girl child, by ensuring the provision of basic education.
The principle on which Camfed was founded is that education can change everything.
Research shows that in sub-Saharan Africa, 24 million girls can’t afford to go to school. A girl may marry as young as 13, and has a one in 22 chance of dying in childbirth. One in six of her children will die before the age of five. The research also shows all that can be turned around by education: Girls with educations regularly earn up to 25% more, and reinvest 90% of their earnings in their families. They are three times less likely to become HIV-positive, and they have fewer, healthier children who are 40% more likely to live past the age of five.
Since 1993, Camfed has fought poverty and Aids by educating girls and empowering young women. Nearly 1.5 million children in impoverished areas of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi have benefited from the innovative education programs.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said, “Investing in girls and women is likely to prevent intergenerational cycles of poverty and yield high economic and societal returns.â€
Camfed believe every child has the right to an education, and they help girls throughout their development from primary school to adulthood, providing fees, books, equipment, counselling and encouragement.
Coltart has been a human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe since his return to the country in 1983. He was first elected to represent the Bulawayo South House of Assembly constituency in June 2000, and was re-elected in March 2005. In March 2008 he was elected as a Senator to represent the Khumalo Senatorial constituency in Bulawayo. Senator Coltart was sworn in as Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture in February 2009.
In his address at the ceremony, Coltart said the gesture by the UK Department for International Development is a positive move towards improving relations between the two countries, strained by the imposition of sanctions by Britain and her western allies.
Details: http://uk.camfed.org