Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference
YFS Case Study: Financial Services Offered to Youth
The case looks at a program established by Camfed International in Zambia targeting girl school leavers with a package of training and a business grant, accompanied by mentoring and support, followed by further training and the option of a loan for successful businesses.
Author
Mary Namukoko, Camfed InternationalAbstract
In 1996, as the first group of girls supported by Camfed was due to complete secondary education, there was an urgent need to create post-school economic opportunities in their communities. Without such opportunities, educated young women would migrate to the cities and become vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation. Migration also threatened to take the benefits of these young women’s education away from their communities, thereby limiting the growth of the rural economy and the regeneration of the social fabric.
Against this background, Cama was established to maintain the support network the young female school leavers had built while at school and to offer post-secondary school training opportunities in areas including business and social enterprise. Cama provides a vehicle through which its members can develop their activism and leadership to achieve positive social change. Today, Cama has a membership of over 9,500 young women with structures that extend from village to district, national and pan-African levels.
