We use cookies to make our site work well for you and so we can continually improve it. The cookies that keep the site functioning are always on. We use analytics and marketing cookies to help us understand what content is of most interest and to personalise your user experience.
It's your choice to accept these or not. You can either click the 'I accept all button below or use the switches to choose and save your choices.
For detailed information on how we use cookies and other tracking technologies, please visit our cookies information page.
These cookies allow us to measure and report on website activity by tracking page visits, visitor locations and how visitors move around the site. The information collected does not directly identify visitors. We drop these cookies and use Adobe to help us analyse the data.
These cookies are necessary for the website to operate. Our website cannot function without these cookies and they can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
Achievements and lessons learned - click here
CASE STUDY: Confidence, courage, compassion, collaboration: How girls’ education is boosting a Sisterhood of game changers click here
BLOG: Facing the future of girls’ education for the COVID-19 generation - click here
BLOG: Read Beauty's story - click here
EVALUATION: Baseline, July 2018 - click here
EVALUATION: Midline, July 2020 - click here
EVALUATION: Endline, February 2022 - click here
The Virtuous Cycle of Girls’ Education project supported 270,845 girls, and was implemented by Camfed International in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (40 rural districts across 13 provinces).
In the project communities, poverty intersects with discriminatory gendered social norms, location, and a range of other contextual factors to result in barriers to girls’ access to, and achievement in education. Girls are particularly vulnerable during transitions from one stage of education to the next and from school into adulthood. These complex barriers increase as girls reach adolescence and are compounded by cultural traditions and expectations of early marriage, sexual and physical exploitation, violence and additional financial burdens in secondary school. Key enduring barriers to girls’ learning include the language of instruction (literacy), poverty, under resourced schools and a lack of quality teaching.
The project enabled marginalised girls to transition to, progress through and succeed at secondary school. It then helped them to transition from school to a secure and fulfilling livelihood. This was done by leveraging the ‘Multiplier Effect’ – whereby women who have been supported by Camfed through and beyond school, provide social and economic support to the next generation of girls. These graduates join forces with district and national authorities to drive change at a wider scale, ultimately re-setting the context for future generations of girls. Integral to the approach is the Learner Guide Program which focuses on life skills and mentoring, and enterprise development which expands women’s livelihood opportunities.
Main activities
The project in numbers
Lessons learned
The CAMFED Association (CAMA) has demonstrated the power of young women’s activism and active support for girls’ education and empowerment. CAMA is a powerful peer support and leadership network for young women activists with members bringing their lived experience and expertise to their work in supporting girls’ education and empowerment. Post school, young women who graduated in to CAMA clearly felt connected and supported, with some pointing to examples of how members came together to help pay off the loans of their CAMA sisters or give loans to start businesses.
The Learner Guides are the lynchpin of the project approach and integral to girls’ success. The integration and embeddedness of the Learner Guides within the school and community enabled each Guide to leverage external resources and multiply her impact. The Learner Guides’ collaborated with teachers, helped in establishing trust and respect with parents and ensured the access of learners to life skill sessions. The Learner Guides were part of a student-centred ‘learning team’ that strengthened connections between homes and schools and targeted the needs of the most vulnerable girls.
My Better World has had a positive impact on key life skills and gender equality The project endline evaluation has shown the My Better World programme has clearly had a very positive impact in all three countries on gender equality, appropriate sexual behaviour, girls’ safety and girls’ self-confidence and independence. Boys have benefited from this intervention as well as girls, which has been fundamental in supporting discussion and challenge of harmful gender norms and stereotypical behaviour.
Camfed International: https://camfed.org/
Camfed International
Camfed Tanzania, Camfed Zambia and Camfed Zimbabwe
Upper primary to secondary
Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (40 rural districts across 13 provinces)
April 2017 to January 2022
270,845 marginalised girls