Education Changes Everything: Campaign for Female Education (December 2018)

Lecture by Ann Cotton, OBE, Founder and Trustee, Camfed International
 

The Department of International Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences are pleased to invite you to a presentation by Ann Cotton, Founder and Trustee of Camfed International.

Ann Cotton has been focused on improving opportunity for children at the margins of education for more than three decades. Her commitment to girls’ education in Africa began in 1991 following a research trip to Zimbabwe to investigate why girls’ school enrollment in rural areas was so low. Contrary to the common assumption that families were not sending girls to school for cultural reasons, she discovered that poverty was the main roadblock. In this presentation, Cotton will share insights gained during the work with Camfed International and reflect on the approaches that have contributed to the organization’s remarkable achievements, including supporting the education of almost four million children in five countries. In recognition of her advocacy of girls’ education in Africa, she has been awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Cotton is an Honorary Fellow at Homerton College and Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the Cambridge University Judge Business School. She is a noted speaker on international platforms, including the World Economic Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative and the Skoll World Forum. In 2014, she addressed the US-Africa Leaders Summit hosted by the White House, the George W. Bush Institute and the US State Department. She has won numerous awards for her work, including an Honorary Doctorate in Law from Cambridge University, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Woman of the Year in the UK, and UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year. In November 2014, she was awarded the WISE Prize for Education, becoming the fourth WISE laureate alongside Vicky Colbert, Founder of Escuela Nueva in Colombia, Dr. Madhav Chavan, co-founder of Pratham in India, and Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of BRAC in Bangladesh.

The lecture will be followed by a Q and A session.

For further details about Ann Cotton and Camfed International, please see https://camfed.org/ .