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A
success story for girls' education in Zimbabwe
Sabine Dolan,
UNICEF
November 20, 2006
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/zimbabwe_36650.html
NEW YORK, USA – "For most girls
in Zimbabwe, access to an education is really a privilege and not
a right," says Winnie Farao, 26, explaining how the high cost
of education, exacerbated by hyperinflation, has made girls’ education
a "second priority" in her country.
"With so few dollars, what would
you use it for – to send your child to school or to buy food?"
she asks.
Ms. Farao knows
the situation well. When she was 14, she nearly dropped out of school
because her parents could no longer afford the fees. But she was
lucky. She received support from the Campaign
for Female Education (CAMFED), which paid for her schooling.
Today, she works as a programme manager at CAMFED in Zimbabwe.
Launched in 1993, CAMFED began by supporting
education for 32 girls in rural Zimbabwe. Now the organisation fights
poverty and AIDS by helping to educate nearly 250,000 girls in some
of the poorest regions of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania.
CAMFED supports girls’ access to education
by raising community awareness about the importance of schooling,
and in a number of other ways.
"Their fees will be paid for and
their uniforms will be provided," says Ms. Farao. "A community
environment is made for the girls’ safety, to ensure they are safe
at home, safe along the way and safe in the school system."
Aside from promoting girls' education,
UNICEF, in partnership with CAMFED, has been setting up Girls’ Empowerment,
or ‘GEM’, clubs.
These are particularly valuable in
Zimbabwe, a country where an estimated one in six females aged 15
to 24 is now living with HIV. Orphaned girls in Zimbabwe are three
times more likely to contract HIV than their peers.
The GEM clubs play a key role in HIV
prevention, providing valuable information and life skills that
are essential to girls growing up in Zimbabwe. At the clubs, girls
are trained in sexual negotiation skills (‘how to say no’) and learn
about abstinence and condom use.
"I can say that the GEM clubs
are working really hard to make the girls there speak out – and
to say no to HIV/AIDS, no to rape, no to abuse," says Ms. Farao.
"We want to be educated. We want knowledge. The girls themselves
have been given the opportunity to speak about what's really in
their hearts."
Girls’ education
has become a national issue in Zimbabwe. In October, the United
Nations – in collaboration with the Government of Zimbabwe and other
partners, including CAMFED – launched a ground-breaking National
Girls’ Education Strategic Plan to increase Zimbabwe’s likelihood
of achieving universal primary education and ensuring that girls
can stay in school.
For Ms. Farao and countless other girls,
this represents a major step in the right direction.
"The strategic plan is really
conscious to a great extent of girls’ predicaments," says Ms.
Farao. "It looks at girls’ education as a priority, to say,
‘We've neglected the girls for a long time and this is their time.
We need to put them on the programme. We need to put them on the
national agenda.’"
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