thinkBIG is proud to announce our first confirmed Education panelist Fiona Muchembere. A Zimbabwean lawyer and advocate for law reform, especially in regards to women. Fiona is also a member of the The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) Association (CAMA) of successful young women. The CAMFED website had this to say about Ms. Muchembere:When CAMFED Director Lucy Lake first met Fiona Muchembere, she was working as a cleaner in an office building in Harare – despite having achieved some of the best school exam results in Zimbabwe. Her dreams of going to university seemed far beyond reach. But with CAMFED’s support and encouragement, she defied the odds to become the first member of her rural community to go to university and is now a fully-qualified lawyer.
“I grew up in a society where it is said that the only course a woman would pass is marriage,” explains Fiona. “I come from a family where there is no one qualified for any professional job, where there is no one who has been to university. I am actually their pioneer.”
Fiona was brought up by her grandmother in the rural district of Wedza. They worked side by side tending a small plot of land and selling fruit and vegetables at the local market in order to buy basic supplies to get through each week.
Today, Fiona stands as a powerful role model for girls in her rural community.
Ms. Muchembere has expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the thinkBIG conference, which is set to take place Feburary 1-3, 2008. In her acceptance letter, she wrote:
I wholeheartedly believe in the obkectives of the conference particularly that it is crucial to embark on an international advocacy campaign around women's issues in order to bring about real change to women's lives globally, particularly in the developing world.
It is my sincere hope that the thinkBIG conference will be ahuge success and I am honored to have been offered an opportunity to contribute to that success. For over 14 years CAMFED and CAMA have been focusing primarily on Women and Education in Africa providing resources to take the thousands of rural girls through primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as broadening life choices for rural women; I look forward to sharing more on our experiences on the importances of investing in education for women and the differences that it makes in the lives of women and in communities across Africa.
We're thrilled that Ms. Muchembere is coming to speak on our Education panel! If you have any questions or comments on the thinkBIG conference, please email lat008@stanford.edu or visit our website at .