Unleashing Girls’ Power

Speakers

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  Rebecca Winthrop

  Director, Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution

  Rebecca Winthrop is an international expert on global education. Her work focuses on promoting high quality learning opportunities for children and youth across the developing world. She advises governments, international institutions, foundations, civil society organizations and corporations on education and development issues. She has published widely on a range on topics, including scalable strategies for reaching the marginalized, supporting teachers living in difficult contexts, education system reform for global citizenship and 21st century competencies, and girls' education. She has worked in numerous countries to advance education from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Kosovo and Croatia to Uganda and Liberia. She has served as an advisor on key initiatives of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Global Partnership for Education, US First Lady Michelle Obama, UN Special Envoy Gordon Brown, among others.

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  Graça Machel

  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.

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  Memory Banda

  Let Girls Lead Representative, Girls Empowerment Network

  Memory Banda has been instrumental in mobilizing support and at forefront in organizing advocacy activities at local level in Malawi, and she has also participated in national advocacy and policy dialogue on issues affecting adolescent girls. Memory is 18 years old and is motivated to advocate for girls because her younger sister got married when she was 11 years old, and has two children. As a survivor of gender-based violence, Memory resolved to finish school before getting married, and is now a student at Chancellor College. Memory has worked with GENET (Girls Empowerment Network) in Malawi since 2011, when she started volunteering to mobilize girls to stand up against harmful traditional practices and early marriages. She serves on GENET’s Adolescent Girls’ Advisory Board.

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  Lucy Lake

  Executive Chair & Advisor, CAMFED

  Lucy joined CAMFED in 1994, shortly after it was founded, and went on to become the CEO. In 2023, Lucy stepped aside as CEO and continues as Executive Advisor, working with the executive and boards to position CAMFED for its next phase of development. Under Lucy’s leadership, CAMFED was awarded the Hilton Humanitarian Prize and the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, and has been recognized by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD for best practice in taking development innovation to scale. In 2020, Lucy was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Development alongside Angeline Murimirwa, now CAMFED's CEO, for her contribution to gender equality in education. Lucy is a founding member and former Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, a member of the High-Level Steering Group of the Education Commission’s Workforce Initiative, and on the Advisory Board of the Global Education Monitoring Report.

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  Mabel van Oranje

  Founder, Girls Not Brides

  Mabel van Oranje is a global advocate for equality, justice and freedom and serial entrepreneur for social change. During the last decade, she played a catalytic role in the creation and growth of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, the Girls First Fund and VOW for Girls. Mabel is currently a board member of Fondation Chanel, the Lego Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust and VOW for Girls (chair). She is also an advisor to Apolitical Academy Global, Co-Impact’s Gender Fund, Global Witness, the Graca Machel Trust and The Elders. Mabel is a champion of Girls Not Brides, and a co-founder and chair emeritus of the European Council on Foreign Relations. You can follow her tweets @MabelvanOranje

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