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CAMFED IMPACT REPORT
• volunteers are fully included in decision-making, program
management and resource deployment;
found power is gaining momentum and has resulted in
palpable community pride.
• volunteer structures, including Community Development
Committees and Mother Support Groups, accord status
and peer unity among volunteers;
• volunteering brings many related benefits such as
acquiring new skills, community recognition of expertise
and knowledge, and career progression;
• volunteer advancement enables those who show
leadership to contribute to national advocacy and pan-
African initiatives.
Local philanthropy: the multiplier effect
By the end of 2009, 118,384 children in Africa had
been supported to go to school through community
philanthropy galvanized by Cama.
Since Camfed’s volunteer activists come from the same
environment in which they work, a strong community
connection propels their desire to contribute. Camfed
witnesses daily volunteers’ willingness to give time and
in many cases monetary support, though they have
relatively little themselves, to strengthen change in their
community.
In rural Africa, the ethos of mutual support is strong
within communities and families, but the negatively
reinforcing impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS have now
damaged extended family structures so severely that
support has to come from different sources. Cama,
CDCs, MSGs and the other community structures
are supporting young women and those around
them with new ways to care for others beyond the
extended family. Facilitated by Camfed’s support and
training, women and men, old and young, educated
and uneducated, express genuine satisfaction in the
many things they can do to help a child. This new-
In Zimbabwe, nearly half of all stakeholders in long-term
partner districts said they had provided monetary or other
support to a child-headed household over the last six
months — significantly more than in districts where the
program was just getting underway.
Camfed’s study in Tanzania found that 60% of stakeholders
reported providing support to a family with sick or elderly
members not related to them in the last six months; a
third provided support to a child-headed household; and
over half had given money to send a child to school in the
previous month — supporting an average of 2.77 children
not related to them.
Leveraging partnerships to accelerate progress
The factors affecting children’s education reflect the
most pressing development concerns in poor rural
communities: lack of employment opportunities, the
impact of HIV/AIDS, nutrition and food security, child
protection, lack of infrastructure, and lack of transparency
around resources. The challenges of managing crosssector
partnerships have typically made it difficult to
tackle these deep-seated problems holistically and with
adequate collaboration among community constituencies
or coordination between service providers.
Among Camfed’s greatest strengths are the cooperative
relationships it has established with African government
departments. These relationships are leveraging betterintegrated
interventions. For example, Camfed Ghana in
April 2009 hosted the first joint forum for all NGOs operating
in the education sector in the Northern Region, with the
aim of sharing knowledge and best practice. This forum
successfully brought together international and local NGOs
with government bodies and community representatives.
As a result, the Ghana Education Service has instituted the
forum on an annual basis to enable better coordination and
oversight within the education sector.
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