Charles' appeal for CAMFED
Charles Neale is raising money for CAMFED
Story
I am hoping to raise £1,200 to protect and support 10 girls in Malawi through a year at secondary school. Just £120 can help to shield a vulnerable girl and cover her school costs for a year.
Why?
As you may know, promoting sustainable human and economic development in the world's poorest places, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is a cause I care a lot about. Education, and female education in particular, is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. CAMFED is an organisation which works to address these issues and as a result is the ideal charity to raise money for. There is more information below on CAMFED and how they work to support and empower young women across sub-Saharan Africa.
How?
If I achieve this target, I will transform into none other than Joe Maldonado-Passage aka Joe Exotic aka The Tiger King, everyone's favourite lockdown lothario and possibly Time magazine's person of the year (you heard it here first). This will involve cutting and dying my my lockdown locks into a delightful blond mullet, and shaving by beard into that super sexy handlebar moustache. If I struggled to find a girlfriend before this, there will be zero chance of a summer romance now!
If that isn't enough motivation to donate to such a worthy cause, the only way I can revert back to a normal look will be to shave all my hair off and look like Jeff Lowe, so you're guaranteed that I will look stupid for several weeks.
There will of course be evidence of this and I will post lots of photos to permanently tarnish my internet footprint, so please donate and help sponsor 10 girls through secondary school!
Who are CAMFED?
CAMFED, Campaign For Education, is a charity that supports vulnerable girls through their education and empowers young women to become leaders of change. Their focus is on rural areas of Malawi, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe where girls and young women face acute disadvantage and where their empowerment will have a transformative impact.
Why Malawi?
CAMFED Malawi was launched in 2009. Malawi suffers from a critical lack of secondary schools so children often have to travel long distances to get to their places of education. This makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and school drop out. There's also a severe lack of qualified teachers, with an average child to teacher ratio of 72 to 1. With very few female teachers, those able to get to school lack the role models to help encourage them to stay. Malawi also has the 12th highest child marriage prevalence rate in the world; 42% of girls are married before the age of 18. Over 9% of the adult population are living with HIV and 20% of Malawian households, many headed by women and girls, are looking after orphans and vulnerable children.
Girls’ education has been described as the “silver bullet” in terms of what it can achieve to address child and maternal mortality rates, raise families out of poverty, accelerate economic development and help communities deal with climate change. CAMFED Malawi and the young women leaders in the CAMFED Association of graduates are now at the forefront of tackling child marriage, working with schools, parents, education authorities, social workers and the police to catalyse action for marginalised girls.
In terms of their COVID-19 response, CAMFED are conducting a number of community outreach initiatives to identify and protect the most vulnerable girls and get them back into school as soon as possible. This is obviously really tricky. CAMFED Association (CAMA) members are providing face-to-face outreach sessions in communities to raise awareness on hygiene practices and social distancing. Local networks are helping by providing families with internet bundles, many of the girls now have tablets. The charity have found that radio is a good way of keeping in touch with those living in areas where access to technology is limited and online learning is not an option. CAMA Learner Guides are conducting life-skills awareness classes both through radio sessions and socially distanced community visits. CAMFED has also been supporting the Ministry of Education in Malawi in the production and distribution of education materials and working with other partners to get basic necessities to families and protect children. This report summarises how the charity has been working to ensure that marginalised girls have the support they need through this pandemic - https://camfedorg2015.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/files/CAMFED-girls_and_young_women_at_the_frontline_of_covid-19.pdf