According to the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, only one in ten South African students qualify for university; and only five percent of them graduate.*

One of the biggest concerns in South Africa is the quality of children’s education, or lack thereof. This problem is mostly seen within disadvantaged communities across the country. In addition, and as we have seen in 2012, even those who do have access to public education don’t get their text books and other learning materials on time.

It is because of these various, never-ending problems that we have identified the need to introduce a Fund that will, at the very least, assist in preventing them.

Every child has the right to quality education, and we’d like to be in a position to get them there.

Our Active Education Fund (previously known as the Active Learning Drive) currently focuses on providing access to learning materials that assist in knowledge-growth for these children. These include, but are not limited to, text-books, activity-books, novels (as you already know, reading is the greatest thing for a young mind), and other learning materials alike.

In the near future, we will be introducing other aspects to this Fund, such the construction e-learning facilities that integrate with already existing platforms that have proven to be successful in the past. Our long-term goal with such a project is to create and sustain a high quality education within the confines of the beneficiaries we support (and other homes/​organisations too). We believe that when a child is given the opportunity, great things can happen – and this is where the project will draw its roots from.

As more information about the project is ready, we’ll make it available here.

Additionally, we foresee the project’s extensive growth over the next few years, with plans to incorporate the construction of learning facilities into the Funds core purpose.

We appeal to you to make a financial contribution of your choosing to this worthy cause. If you’re in contact with one, your fundraising representative will let you know what the general costs for the provision of learning materials (as discussed) is, so that you can then make your decision on how much you would be prepared to assist us with. We thank you very much in advance for your kind asssistance!

* Michael & Susan Dell Foundation Urban Education Program – msdf.org/programs/urban-education/ under “Urban Education in South Africa”