Published June 16, 2009 @ 02:39PM PT

We are thrilled to announce the Facebook Causes Live-From-Africa Challenge. If we can increase our member base by 200,000, we will secure a $100,000 matching grant for girls’ education in Africa – and the Challenge Top Recruiter will receive a FREE TRIP TO AFRICA to see Camfed in action! Learn more: www.causes.com/camfed Recruiters who invite more than 100 new supporters will receive our Documentary “Where Water Meets the Sky”. The top 10 Recruiters overall will receive our Book “I Have a Story to Tell”, and a unique gift crafted by a young woman supported by Camfed’s program. The Challenge Top Recruiter once we have met our goal will receive A FREE TRIP TO AFRICA, visiting the communities where Camfed works and meeting the remarkable gir... Read More

Published June 09, 2009 @ 02:02PM PT

"I used to go to school barefooted, with my face full of hunger. If only I get the chance, I will do something great." - Runyararo Mashingaidze [This was a statement in a letter to CAMFED in 1993 from Runyararo. Ms. Mashingaidze is now a doctor working at Harare General Hospital.]

Published May 29, 2009 @ 03:39PM PT

When I completed my primary education in 1989, I was looking forward to secondary school, but unfortunately my parents could not afford to pay my school fees. I asked them if they would allow me to go and work as a housemaid and they agreed. I worked for two years from 1990 to 1992. That was when I started to see what the world was and what it meant to me. I was being paid Z$20 a month. I spent Z$15 and kept Z$5. That Z$5 I was putting in a tin as my security. In 1992 I explained to my mother that I wanted to proceed with my education using the money I was keeping. It's unfortunate that the secondary school was very far from home so there was a need to become a bush boarder, living in a hut I built for myself. My mother sold her only cow to help me. I still remember its name - Marooro... Read More

Published May 26, 2009 @ 01:37PM PT

I was around nine months old that day. My mother and grandmother went to the fields. They left me and my sister in the hut where people stay to scare the baboons. My mother came back to find the hut on fire. My sister had pulled me out from the hut but the burning thatch was falling on me. I was taken to the hospital, and for many years I was receiving treatment. I developed contractures, which affected my posture. I was transferred to Gweru for a graft but it failed. It is by God's grace that I am not a psychiatric patient. I can't recall the pain, but now because of the pain I see in other children, I know it was painful. I now understand the severity of my burns. I had known the practicalities. I had the experience and now I understand the theory. Today, it's great because I unde... Read More

Published May 22, 2009 @ 10:55AM PT

I remember when my father gave me Z$20 as bus fare to go to an interview at Nyadiri Teachers' College. I used Z$9 to get to the college and whilst I was there the transport costs increased, and on the way back I was supposed to pay Z$16, so I had to borrow money from a friend. At home that placed pressure on my mother who had to help me find that money. We had to do piece work until finally I had enough to send back. It was after that that I applied for a grant to start my own business. My proposal was successful and I worked hand in hand with my local headteacher who gave me books and other support. He encouraged me to work hard. My business became a family business as they really supported me. I used the first profits to expand my business. The rest I used to support my brothers and... Read More

Published May 19, 2009 @ 01:58PM PT

I am not ashamed of letting people know what I have been through. One of my close relatives forced himself on me and after a month I discovered I was pregnant. When I gave birth my parents took me back home. That was the most difficult time of my life. People would not believe me. They accused me of seducing him. I stayed at home for less than a month before my mother became ill. She was admitted to hospital but she did not recover and finally she passed away. At her death I was left to take care of my baby and my father who had become mentally ill. At times my father got lost and at times lost his clothes, so I had to go in search of him. The situation worsened and he could not walk on his own, he had to use a wheelchair. He finally passed away. Life without parents is not easy. I ... Read More

Published May 15, 2009 @ 12:10PM PT

In life, most of us walk long and winding journeys, during which some make mere dents and others make huge impressions. My journey made an impression that haunts me and keeps my life awake. As a young college graduate, I was posted as head of my first school in the most remote area of Nyaminyami District. I felt lonely, lost and hopeless. I was exposed to a new and harsh environment that I had not grown up in. I did not know then that this was going to be a wake-up call for me to help girls in Africa access education. There were not many girls attending lessons at Mola Secondary School, which was the only secondary school in a hundred-kilometer radius. I would meet a few shy girls in classrooms, grouped together to provide each other with support and protection from the male-dominat... Read More

Published May 12, 2009 @ 01:13PM PT

My education gave me power over my life. There was no time when I needed this more than during the events that took place in April 2002. My boyfriend forced me to have sex without my consent. When this was discovered at my Church, the elders took the two of us and said that we should now stay together as man and wife. To make matters worse, my mother even went on to say she would no longer stay with me as she suspected I was pregnant. I felt so unwanted. I talked to a woman in the community who later explained to my mother about the consequences I would face if I stayed with such a guy. Not to marry him was the best decision I made in my life because otherwise I would not have managed to be the person I am today. I am glad that all the people who were trying to force me to get married... Read More

Published May 08, 2009 @ 01:07PM PT

We have set out to prove to the world that we are resourceful individuals able to act on ideas and provide solutions grounded in the realities of the life we lived. We are along this road together. When we left school we did not run away from our communities. We are sharing with them the benefits of our education. We are working tirelessly for those who never went to school - helping them to build their lives and their confidence. Many of us are providing our local communities with goods and services through the businesses we have set up. Some have gained places at university pursuing law, medicine, political administration and business studies. Yet others are employed as doctors, auditors, teachers and nurses. We have acquired freedom in every sphere of life - economic freedom thro... Read More

Published May 05, 2009 @ 02:50PM PT

In 1991, I was in the Nyaminyami District of western Zimbabwe studying why so few girls beyond the age of twelve went to school. On one of my walks between the villages, I met two teenage sisters - Cecilia and Makarita. They invited me to their home, a hut they had built themselves. Inside, it was immaculate. A shelf suspended their books from the mud floor. A battered tin trunk held a broken mirror, two worn toothbrushes and a jar of Vaseline. Their shoes, worn only on special occasions, hung from the rafters. Hand-written English spelling lists decorated the walls. And four tomatoes - a gift from the school vegetable plot - were being saved for their evening meal. They had come sixty miles to attend Mola Secondary School because the costs were much lower than those of the schools ... Read More