大象传媒

Marthe Wandou's childhood as a girl growing up in the Far North Region of Cameroon wasn't a typical one. She was the only girl to complete senior school and go on to University as her classmates were all married off in their teens. Her father was illiterate but believed ALL his children should be educated - something he received much ridicule for.

She successfully completed a law degree, but went back to her home area where she set up the organisation Aldepa - and spent the next 20 years working to promote girls' education and to prevent child marriage. She's also worked to pick up the pieces of women's lives destroyed by Boko Haram when the group attacked villages to the north in the Lake Chad basin.

She's now been recognised as one of the winners of this year鈥檚 Right Livelihood Awards:

"People said going to school would just lead girls to prostitution, you'll not have a good husband.... People in the village always told my father 'you're wasting your time and money', but my father always told them that God gives him the girls so any time he has money everything would be used for his children, not only boys but daughters."

(Photo: Marthe Wandou at work at her desk. Credit: Right Livelihood)

Show less