The Campaign for Female Education, or CAMFED, a Pan-African movement, has been announced as the 2021 recipient of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize.
The $2.5 million prize is the largest annual humanitarian award. It is presented each year to a nonprofit organization that has made “extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering.” Previous awardees include Tostan, Amref, and International Rescue Committee.
CAMFED is an NGO working across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi to eradicate poverty through the education and empowerment of girls and young women.
Almost 11 million girls have left school as a result of the pandemic, and their return remains unknown.
“We thought that in this year of COVID-19, it was really important to highlight challenges to schooling,” Peter Laugharn, president and CEO at the Hilton Foundation, told Devex.
CAMFED takes a holistic approach, working to address the barriers to education at the community level by training teacher-mentors, providing school equipment, and establishing and nurturing parent support groups.
“We are not just supporting girls to go to school, we are changing embedded mindsets along the way but we’re embedding it in action today in partnerships with local authorities, traditional leaders, and government officials to make communities healthier, wealthier, and more resilient,” Angie Murimirwa, executive director at CAMFED-Africa, said.
It is this model, its impact, and replicability that saw CAMFED receive the prize, Laugharn explained.
Delighted with the award, Murimirwa said the money will go toward “supercharging” CAMFED’s efforts to support a further 5 million girls through school, 50,000 young women in creating climate smart agricultural businesses, the creation of 150,000 new jobs, and a network expansion to 250,000 women leaders.
Watch the announcement video.
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