Growing up in rural Zimbabwe in the 1990s, Angeline Murimirwa was a star student, but her family couldn’t afford to continue her education. Around the same time, an organization called CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education) started offering scholarships covering both tuition and housing to a few hundred girls across the country, including Angeline. At school, Angeline often sat down for meals worrying guiltily whether her family had eaten that day.
Today, Angeline is the CEO of CAMFED, helping millions of girls go to school in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Just like her, these young women may also be tomorrow’s leaders.
Educating girls is the foundation of healthy and strong societies. But in many places, the barriers to attending school are mounting, depriving girls of the resources to choose their own futures. Few people are fighting to solve this crisis as tenaciously and effectively as Angeline—one reason among many that her work won her the prestigious 2024 Africa Education Medal.
Girls’ education leads to healthier, more prosperous communities. How do we end poverty, mitigate climate change, and tackle so many of our world’s biggest problems? As Angeline says, the closest thing we have to a silver bullet is to educate a girl.
Yousafzai is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the Malala Fund