Breaking barriers: Angeline Murimirwa on educating girls and fighting poverty
Zimbabwean Angeline Murimirwa (45) is CEO of the pan-African organisation CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education). She was one of the very first girls to be able to attend secondary school thanks to support from this NGO. Now, she is dedicated to ensuring millions of girls get the same opportunity. In this interview, she shares her journey, the impact of CAMFED, and why educating girls is key to fighting poverty.
Educating girls is one of the most efficient ways to combat poverty. Educated women get married later and have healthier families. They themselves are less likely to contract diseases such as HIV, they are less often the victim of gender-based violence and contribute substantially to their country’s economy.
CAMFED was established more than thirty years ago. Its mission was to combat poverty in Africa by giving girls access to education and training them to become young professionals. Since 1993, CAMFED has supported 7.8 million children to go to school in Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, including 2.4 million girls at secondary school. Funding from SAS-P has enabled CAMFED to send 40.000 girls to school in Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Sisterhood
Besides being CEO, Angeline Murimirwa is also the founder of the CAMFED Association (CAMA), a growing network of nearly 313,000 educated women serving as mentors and philanthropists for the next generation. Every CAMFED graduate financially supports three more girls through school, and mentors and imparts skills to many more – enabling this kind of sisterhood support to spread throughout the participating African countries.
Every girl who can attend school thanks to a subsidy, benefits from the support that helps her lift the pressure of expectations off her shoulders. After graduation, her chances of succeeding improve if she gets advice on job hunting, starting a business or if she receives seed capital from an experienced female professional. It’s not only individual African girls who benefit, though. Rural communities piggyback along with the development and successes of members of their village. They no longer feel excluded and disadvantaged. They genuinely count.
Due to her own lived experience, Angeline Murimirwa is the best possible ambassador for CAMFED. She knows what it feels like when your parents are just about able to produce enough food to survive on, and when there is no money to pay for schooling.
Murimirwa: ‘In Africa, education is highly prized, and as a girl I was obsessed with school. I really loved learning and in the classroom, I felt that I mattered. Children who are excluded from education due to poverty, are implicitly being told they’re not important, and that they don’t deserve to develop themselves.
At school, I felt seen and heard. Education gave me a sense of belonging. But during my final year at primary school, I realised: this is where it stops for me. I had even been relatively fortunate because my grandmother had left school at a much younger age. And my mother, the most intelligent pupil in her class, was forced to leave when she was about nine years old. Girls drop out earlier than boys because they have to take care of young children in the village. Schools are also often far away from villages, and walking such long distances back and forth is dangerous. Other reasons why girls leave school prematurely are teenage pregnancies and child marriages.’
Ticket
‘My parents wanted nothing more than for me to continue my education. They were well aware of the opportunities secondary education could bring. It’s a ticket out of poverty. But for them, it was just like admiring expensive items in a shop window: far beyond their financial means.
To my immeasurable good fortune, CAMFED existed in 1992. In my district, they had asked the village schools to select the three best pupils among the roughly six hundred children. I got the highest exam marks that anyone had ever achieved at my village school. When I went to get my results, all the teachers and the parents from the parents’ committee were standing there waiting for me. When I saw my marks, I burst into tears. I thought: this is it, my race is run, this is where school ends for me. The school management then told me that CAMFED wanted to support me, so I could continue my schooling. I didn’t believe them. I thought: who on earth would help a poor girl whom they don’t even know? Even today, girls who receive support from CAMFED respond in the same way: this is too good to be true.’
'I am eternally grateful to CAMFED that I was able to break the cycle of women in my family, who were never able to continue their education.'
‘At boarding school, I received a school uniform and my first pair of new shoes – I didn’t even know my shoe size. Throughout that entire first year, I regularly feared they would soon take all this away from me again. I was happy, but I also suffered from survivor syndrome. I felt guilty because I was able to continue my education, but others couldn’t.
My mother sold two buckets of corn to be able to buy me a sheet and a toothbrush for boarding school. She brought me there; it was also the realisation of her dream. Whenever I speak about the injustice of being denied an education, I’m reminded of my mother. I have a college degree, I’m married and I have four children. I am eternally grateful to CAMFED that I was able to break the cycle of women in my family, who were never able to continue their education. I know what it means to get an education, and I wish this for everyone. That’s why I work as hard as I can for CAMFED and the CAMA support network, to help elevate African women even further.’