CAMFED
helping disadvantaged youth complete their education in Zambia
Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) has been supporting girls to go to school, learn, thrive and become leaders and changemakers in communities across sub-Saharan Africa for decades. Be That Girl is partnering with CAMFED to support disadvantaged youth in completing their education through the Learner Guides mentorship program in Zambia.
The Learner Guides are young women, once supported by CAMFED to complete their education, who return to their former schools as mentors and role models, delivering self-development, life and learning skills, as well as vital sexual and reproductive health information and psycho-social support to the class.
Beyond the classroom, Learner Guides create an important home-school link, following up with children who drop out of school and working with communities to keep vulnerable girls safe from abuse.
Learner Guides work with schools, communities and district governments to keep vulnerable children, particularly girls, in school, and help them overcome their challenges.
The Learner Guides are rewarded for their work with access to interest-free loans to start a business, as well as with an accredited qualification that helps them enter professions such as teaching or social work, in places that badly need such skills, creating a win-win virtuous circle.
The expansion of the Learner Guides programme will improve access to quality education for 16,000 of the most disadvantaged children in rural Zambia, while supporting the transition of 320 young women, the Learner Guides themselves, into economic independence.
Key numbers
In Zambia, only 23% of girls complete secondary education, compared with 34% of boys, and 10% of girls have never been to school at all.
in Zambia, 39% of girls are married by the time they are 18. Early marriage is a major cause and effect of low school attendance and retention rates.
The goal of the partnership is to increase access to quality education for 16,000 of the most disadvantaged children in rural Zambia, including 8,000 of the most vulnerable girls, and help them stay in school.
At the same time, the partnership will support the transition of 320 young women - the Learner Guides - into economic independence: in return for their work, the Guides gain access to interest-free loans that help them start a business.
