Ann Cotton interviewing Graça Machel at the Skoll Awards For Social Entrepreneurship
Speakers
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Ann Cotton is Founder and Board member of CAMFED, an international non-profit organisation tackling poverty and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting girls to go to school and succeed, and empowering young women to step up as leaders of change.
CAMFED’s goal is to replace the existing cycle of poverty and inequality with a new cycle of empowerment and opportunity. The organisation’s unique approach is to not only support girls and young women through school, but also on to new lives as entrepreneurs and community leaders. To complete the “virtuous cycle”, graduating students become alumnae and many train and mentor new generations of students. More than 5 million children have already benefited from CAMFED’s programmes in a network of 5,745 partner schools across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi. In 2014, Camfed was recognised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for best practice in taking development innovation to scale.
Ann 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, the Skoll World Forum, and the U.S.-Africa Summit. Ann has won numerous awards for her work, including an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Cambridge and The Open University; an OBE in honour of her advocacy of girls’ education in Africa; the Skoll and Schwab Awards for Social Entrepreneurship; Woman of the Year in the UK; and UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year; and the WISE Prize for Education.
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Founder, Graça Machel Trust
Graça Machel is a renowned international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and has been a social and political activist over many decades. She is a former freedom fighter and was the first Education Minister of Mozambique. Her contributions to the Africa Progress Panel, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group and the High-Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda, have been widely appreciated. She is a member of The Elders, Girls Not Brides, Board Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, African Ambassador for A Promised Renewed, President of SOAS, University of London, Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Board Chair of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, President of the Foundation for Community Development, founder of the Zizile Institute for Child Development.
As Founder of the newly established Graça Machel Trust, she has focused more recently on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, education for all, an end to child marriage, food security and nutrition, and promoting democracy and good governance.
