14 June 2025, 18:13

By Angeline Murimirwa

Change is possible if we invest in young people’s leadership and dismantle the barriers to opportunity for all children.

As I write these words, the drumbeat and dancing from my African village echo through me. My community raised me, and stands with me every day.

At 10 years old, I was destined to join the 95% of girls from the most disadvantaged families in rural Africa who never complete school - just like my mum (who could have been ‘minister of anything’ according to her teacher) and her mother before her.

Instead, I am here today because of a community of support: My teacher, who helped me hide when school fees were being collected; my community, which selected me for financial support from a then-new organisation just as I was about to drop out; and my mother, who sold two buckets of maise to buy me the blanket and toothbrush I needed to board at secondary school. My family missed many meals to see me through.

All paved the way for me to become CEO of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education, the very organisation that supported my education.

At CAMFED, we don’t celebrate ‘survival against the odds’; we partner to change the odds for every child on our beautiful continent. We achieve this by investing in grassroots leadership and fostering community ownership of solutions to systemic challenges.

I was among the first 400 CAMFED clients, facing an abyss after graduation. We lacked the job opportunities and skills we needed to thrive. So we formed a sisterhood, called the CAMFED Association, to support each other and those coming behind us. Now we are 313,000 leaders, united by a common goal: to secure every child’s right to learn, thrive and lead.

We co-design and spearhead CAMFED’s programs, and each of us, on average, financially supports three more girls through school - 1.1 million children in 2024 alone - multiplying........

© LBC