2005 Skoll social entrepreneur Ann Cotton founded the Campaign for Female Education, or Camfed, 17 years ago with proceeds from a bake sale. Today, the organization operates across five African countries with programs that address education, child protection, and young women’s leadership and economic development. Of the more than one million children whose education has [...]

The Skoll World Forum kicked off yesterday with music from Vusi Mahlasela, words from Jeff Skoll, Lakhdar Brahimi of The Elders, Ann Cotton of Camfed, Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, and more, and some great conversations between delegates at dinners sprinkled around various Oxford Colleges.  It’s a bit of a whirlwind, hard to keep [...]

The ongoing BBC World News series on social entrepreneurs, Alvin’s Guide to Good Business, features Camfed this week.  Led by 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur Ann Cotton, Camfed uses an innovative community-based approach to girls education, supporting girls from elementary school through to adulthood.  Camfed is a great story of impact.  Since 1993, Camfed has improved [...]

BBC World News will be launching this weekend an 8-part series on social entrepreneurs around the globe.  Alvin’s Guide to Good Business will follow financial expert Alvin Hall as he visits a different social entrepreneur each week.  He’ll look at business models, impact, and the challenges of scaling.  Featured organizations include Riders for Health, [...]

Three Skoll award recipients - Camfed, Half the Sky and Kiva - are among 100 organizations in the final round of the Chase Community Giving challenge.  Chase Community Giving, hosted on Facebook, is an initiative designed to harness social media for fundraising, as well as to generate exposure for social change organizations.  Each of the [...]

Room to Read, led by 2006 Skoll social entrepreneur John Wood, has been selected by the Financial Times as its partner for the FT’s annual seasonal appeal.  Room to Read follows another Skoll social entrepreneurial organization, Camfed, which was the FT seasonal appeal partner for the last two years.  The FT seasonal appeal has raised [...]

Camfed, founded by 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur Ann Cotton, and Kiva, run by Skoll social entrepreneurs Matt Flannery and Premal Shah, are among 50 organizations competing in America’s Giving Challenge.  This is an initiative by Facebook’s Causes, PARADE Magazine and the Case Foundation.  Organizations compete for a $50,000 prize, which will be awarded to the [...]

I read Nick Kristof’s book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, last week, but haven’t had a chance to blog about it.  The Oprah Show yesterday, which focused on women’s and girls’ issues and featured Nick and his wife and co-author, Sheryl WuDunn, reminded me.  One of the women profiled on [...]

Penelope Machipi, a 22-year woman from rural Zambia, last night received a $25,000 Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Womens Leader Award at the Most Powerful Women Summit in San Diego.  Penelope is a graduate of the Camfed program, run by 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur Ann Cotton.  Penelope was featured in a film produced by the local women [...]

Julia Moulden, author of The New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Changing the World, put up a great piece on the Huffington Post over the weekend on the importance for economic development of educating girls.  Skoll social entrepreneur Ann Cotton of Camfed, a “new radical” as Julia defines them, is featured. Among other [...]