(audience applauding)
- So, we're learning about
the transformative power of fashion,
advocating for the poor, coffee.
What about education?
Tell us a story about how education can change lives, Angie.
(audience applauding)
- First disclaimer, be-so-ta.
I didn't need to plait my hair to look big.
(all laughing)
I think you can see that I didn't need to do that.
And a second disclaimer,
fashion, wa-lay,
the dress that I'm wearing here was made by
a fellow CAMA member, called Ha-mish Abu-kari.
What she said, she said to me, oh, you going to Skoll Forum.
I want to make sure that you are looking appropriate
for that forum, so I'm going to make a dress.
So CAMA is Camfed alumni network.
On Thursday the 2nd of July, 1998,
I found myself in a room with 400 other young women.
We had been educated through school
and supported by Camfed.
And Camfed stands for Campaign for Female Education.
They supported us through school with a bursary
So, as we stood in there we had come together
to celebrate this huge fete.
We amongst the first in our villages to have gone that far,
and so this was a huge fete to celebrate.
But we also there to talk about so what's next.
We were daunted by the future.
Just the idea of what's next
was counted what's in the most remote row of districts
where even the ministers of education rarely go to,
and are even aware of as much as their schools.
So, for us, there were no jobs that we could see.
We're not just daunted because we didn't really think
we didn't have any imagination,
and you don't really need an imagination
to know what would become of you.
We knew what was going to happen,
because when we got back to our villages
girls were still dropping out of school.
Children were still leaving out of school prematurely
because they couldn't afford the cost.
Challenges of child marriage,
challenges of teenage pregnancy.
But, look here, everybody in our community
was celebrating us.
We're the heroines.
Girls had made this huge break.
But we were conflicted because we knew,
we knew what we were going to become.
I recall sitting there in that room
when young woman after young woman,
when girl after girl, was walking up
and talking about their stories.
I remember thinking did they steal my script
'cause that really sounds like me.
And was the first time that we had met together.
We were not aware that there were 400 of us
across the country.
So, just sitting there and realizing
from that proximate distance that my story wasn't unique,
I wasn't the only one with monopoly on poverty
and how it affects women.
There was a shared story and a shared narrative
in this room.
It wasn't easy.
I remember sitting there and looking at
one of the girls was there, Emma.
She was wearing this dress, and I was like,
if only I had that dress.
And please stop judging me, I can see that judging look.
(audience laughing)
so, I was thinking if only I had that dress.
It wasn't new.
It was a faded dress.
It was too big for her.
But her aunt had given it to her to come to that meeting.
I had come to that meeting wearing my uniform
because I had nothing else decent to wear.
So you see why this dress matters to me?
Just looking at her and feeling envious.
But before I really got to settle down about my entitlement
to feeling envious, and justified to feel like that,
then Tendaye spoke.
Tend-aye, from the day she left secondary school,
a teacher had taken her in
because her only surviving grandmother had passed away.
And to be honest, I was ashamed of myself.
So, I was vacillating between feeling sorry for myself
and empathy when all of a sudden there was commotion.
We're 400 of us in this room,
a room like twice the size of this room,
and this man stormed into the room.
He was big, and this is relative, as well, to my size.
So, he stormed into the room, and this man was shouting.
He was very well-dressed.
He looked like he had money, seriously.
But he was shouting.
And he was shouting to one of the girls in the room.
How dare you ignore me.
I've been calling you and you're not listening to me.
Do you know that you are nothing without me.
The clothes that you are wearing,
and now all of the a sudden, I own you,
so when I say come, you come.
I recall feeling outraged
You know when you've got a knot in your throat,
but you feel so powerless to challenge this person.
And everybody else in the room
was recognizing the injustice of it all.
And so one of the young facilitators was in the room
stood up and say, look here, sir,
you have no right to do that.
If you're going to ask this girl to get out,
you need to do that through your friends.
Long story short, everybody in that room found their voice.
There was shouting, there was screaming,
they were stamping their foot.
Some of us were big, stood up,
and everyone was like, no, no,
you can't ask her out, after all,
do you realize that she's a minor.
So, some of them tried to appeal to their law.
Some of them said, actually,
she's young enough to be your daughter.
And others are saying, no, but to be honest,
whatever you gave her doesn't matter.
What is it?
Can we raise it and give it back to you?
But, just to say that for me sitting in that room,
when the whole morning we're having a pity party
about where we were at and how terrible our lives were,
and to sit there and see this room with 400 young women
standing up to this hefty, well-dressed,
and looking very educated man,
and saying to him, you're not going to do this
as long as we are all here,
made me realize our collective power.
It made me realize that we might not have the money
at that time, we might not have been as educated,
you know, most of us had not gone to university
at that time.
And we didn't have even the money
to be able to make yease
but we were together the 400 hundred of us
and if he was going to do anything he had to go through us.
So on that very day that is when we started CAMA
or comfided alumni network.
We said we are going to we together
we are going to be there for each other.
We are going to support each other through anything.
We are going to go back to our communities
and use our voices to make everybody understand
that you might not have the money but you've got a lot more
that you've got.
And we also said that actually no
they have catapulted us into leadership positions.
All of us sudden we are pace setters tread setters.
We are going to use this leadership position.
This is position of influence
to be purposeful role models in our community.
And in that meeting they elected me
to become their very national first chairperson.
So I had no option
I had to step up my game
as much as I really thought
initially I was the one who was supposed
to be feeling sorry for myself more.
So for me everybody says to me
what are three things that you would tell
to any entrepreneur.
I'll say three things;
number one, just start.
When we started this whole camfided alumni network,
it didn't have a name.
But one thing that we wanted to do,
is we wanted to be able to go back
and change what we had seen happening.
With we what we had, with who we knew, with who we were
at that time at that moment.
We were not going to wait another day longer.
So just start.
Don't wait until you have crossed every tee
and dotted every I. Start.
What you have what you know and who you know is enough.
Start. No excuses.
Then second thing; partner.
There are some people that you would think actually
this is the time for to settle old scores with.
If you still trying to settle old scores
you don't care enough.
You realize that this is not about you
this is about bigger issues at stake.
So you will partner you will partner with some people
that you don't really think very well of
because your passion should be able
to override any inconveniences that you've got.
Which gets me to the third point;
be willing to learn and be able face criticism.
Know that actually you don't know everything
and you need to be able to learn.
Be open to every newer truth as you know its challenged
And most importantly know that you
you are enough and you con do it .
So CAMA has always been about
getting close to our problems getting close our challenges
and realizing that actually we could and we act on that.
Thank you.
- Wow (applause)
- Awesome.
So you know
two questions for you
the first is when you gave this gorgeous example right
of aaah how do you honor where you are from?
How do you respect your culture
and yet challenge it at the same time?
Because I think this is something
a lot of entrepreneurs face.
And I'm wondering if you a thought on that?
- Definitely, I would say that the comfided alumni network
the young women that I'm representing today
by the way we rose from 400 members that day
to 120,000 today.
(applause)
So as I stand here and talk to you Fiona,
who is now a lawyer, said to me that
"we will be cheering and singing and dancing."
So I can here that in the background.
So I'm going to tell you like very brief short story.
She's telling me one minute but I come from Africa.
As long as the sun is out we're fine.
(all laughs)
so I'm going to tell you about Fatma.
Fatma is 19 year old now.
She told me these story three weeks ago.
So Fatma comes from rural Malawi.
So she went to the traditional leader
who are the cultural custodians in a community.
She is 19. She was supported
through school by camfed from form one.
She has dropped out three times before camfed supported her.
So she said to me, she went to the traditional leader
and said "you know mafomo,"
that is the local name for a traditional leader
"I'm not very happy about what's happening
to women in our community
the number of girls who are dropping out school.
You know the challenges that we continue to face.
I think there are things we need to change."
and he said to her "look here baby girl,"
small girl ehe. - Small girl.
- "Look here, you were born when we were doing this.
Your father I can guarantee was born
when we were doing this.
Your fathers father your great grand father
and you are just a small girl. You know you are a baby.
How can you tell me what to do?"
and she said "okay, I agree with you.
You have been doing this all this time
and yet my father's father my great father
and everybody else before me has seen you do this."
and she said," I don't think that this works."
and he said to her" aren't you a teacher.
You are now a teacher a qualified teacher right?
Would you have become a teacher if this was not working?"
and so Fatma long story short she said to him,
"look here sir, if i showed you the scars that I've got
and the wounds I've that I have got for just trying
to get through the barriers that are in this community
for women you would be shocked.
But unfortunately, it's not physical its emotional,
its psychological, its the torture that I go through
to become who I am right now.
So and say all respect but you are not a woman.
I'm a girl so I understand
this problem here better than you."
so he said "okay, fine that's a point can I listen to you."
well they spoke for a long time she said to him
this is how I became a teacher and she even said that's
why you don't see many ffemale teachers because
you need to realize that some of the things
we are doing here is not really working.
Now you know what happened, so the chief said
all the other traditional leaders please come.
Next time we are going to have a discussion
about how to support girls, how to work with women
Make sure Fatma is there.
She is now our teacher, not just for the children
but also for us.
So for me yes, with respect with respect
and when you've got the bottom line. Which is the red line
that actually this is not right
you can find your way to tell somebody
who is a potential
distractor to a champion. It works.
(giggles)
(audience applauding)
- If you close your eyes at night
and you see the most beautiful dream
of all girls in Africa being educated;
what happens in Africa that does not happen now?
- Aah please don't go there.
(laughs)
Alright, by the way I need to also state that
that man that walked on stage that day- it was skeet.
He was brought in to be able to assist us
to reflect on what we thought was a barrier.
And you know on the fact that we felt weak
when we were not really weak.
So it worked that he used that.
So you asked me my dream for Africa.
I need to close my eyes for these.
I have always said that Zimbabwe is my birth place
Africa is my home and the world is my village.
I believe passionately in the power of education
because it changed my life totally.
If I told anybody I would be in this room
speaking in english on the stage.
They would sent to the psychiatric unit.
(audience laughs)
so I'm standing here and my vision for Africa
let me just use that cause its also the vision
for the organization that I work for the vision for CAMA
because I believe with every iota of my bone in that vision.
Our vision is the world
in which each and every child
is educated protected respected valued
and can grow up to turn the tide of poverty
unashamedly and unapologetically
that is my vision for Africa.
- Thank you.
( applause)
- Thank you.