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Message: Someone thought you might be interested in this entry at Exquisite Safaris. http://www.exquisitesafaris.com/index.php/journal/more/female_education_in_africa/ Female Education in Africa When Ann Cotton arrived in a remote village in Zimbabwe in 1991 to find out why so few girls went to school, little did she realize that what she found there would change the course of her life. Visit CAMFED online. During her visit, Ann met two teenage sisters -Cecilia and Makarita -who invited her into their home, a makeshift hut they had built themselves near Mola Secondary School. The sisters had to walk sixty miles to attend school, because the costs were much lower than the schools near their home. Yet they did not know whether there would be enough money available for them to return to school the following term. Everywhere Ann went, she heard stories like this one. Many of the parents she met in Zimbabwe were facing the agonizing choice of which children to send to school. There was simply not enough money for clothes, shoes and books for every child. And with boys more likely to secure paid employment and provide some security to their parents in their old age, girls were the ones to remain at home and start their lives as domestic and agricultural workers as young children. Back home in Cambridge, Ann decided to act. With a family of three children, her work station was the kitchen table. Baking cakes and making sandwiches gave Ann her first taste of fundraising, with a small stall at the local market. Inspired by stories she had heard in Africa, she managed to raise enough money to send 32 girls in Zimbabwe to school in the first year alone. That was how CAMFED was born in 1993. Fourteen years later, Cardiff-born Ann is Executive Director of a highly successful £2 million charity at the forefront of the field of girls' education and with programmes across sub-Saharan Africa. CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education) is now reaching out to more than 427,000 children and young people across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania. Thanks to Ann's determination and entrepreneurial spirit, CAMFED was voted International Charity of the Year in 2003. In 2005, Ann was named as the Ernst & Young's Social Entrepreneur of the Year for the UK. She is also Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge University, an Honorary Fellow of the Open University and a 2005 Beacon Prize winner alongside Jamie Oliver and Bob Geldof. This year, her contribution to girls' education was recognized when she was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honors list. "Poverty diminishes us all -whether we are bound by its cruelty or witness to its effect," says Ann. "I am privileged to be working with families and communities in Africa determined to find a path out of poverty and inspired by their progress." Ann has a passionate belief in the ability of education to transform lives. Before she started CAMFED, she worked as an educational assessor and advocate for children in care in Lancashire, UK and as an English teacher in London; she studied the multi-cultural education system of Massachusetts whilst at Boston University and she studied part-time at the School for Social Entrepreneurs in London. Young people and education have been the focus of Ann's life and she is convinced that we can only begin to tackle poverty in Africa if the current generation of girls goes to school. "Otherwise," she says, "the vicious cycle of poverty passed from poor mother to poor child will never be broken." Be the Change Becoming a Philanthropist My First Philanthropic Travel Experience The Wisdom of Stone Soup Zambia: Exquisite Safaris School Project Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel Donor Tours Exquisite Safaris www.exquisitesafaris.com