Give Disadvantaged South Africans Hope & A Future

Gosh how I love this work!  It's voluntary work and running this organisation on a shoe string is challenging to say the least, but the rewards are so much greater than the effort!  Seeing families lifted out of living below the bread line and becoming the new middle class because one family member was able to get a degree and enter into a career - wow!  That makes my heart sing! 

One of our Tertiary Students was studying B.Ed.  He came from an orphaned family and his older sister was mentally and physically disabled.  He had younger siblings too.  The family had a little land but only a one roomed house.  Bonga was academically bright but also sensible (after being a pretty challenging teenager by his own account!).  After matriculating from school he managed to get a job (not a mean feat in a location where there is over 70% unemployment) and saved and borrowed enough money to pay for his registration fees to study.  When he came to HABandBF it was at the end of his first year of study, with his first semester marks and an arrears fee statement.  

HABandBF helped with the arrears of R9000 ((£400/$560) so that his 2nd semester results would be released.  They were superb! Including distinctions.  We helped him to get NSFAS funding to cover his fees.  Over the next 3 years we assisted with a laptop, transport costs (high when doing practical teacher training at schools a long way away where rent was needed as well), books... but more than that, with one on one advice, mentoring, cv tutoring, interview practice... And this young man completed his B. Ed with honours in the minimum time and with more than 50% modules being distinctions!

Whilst studying he also helped the matrics at his old high school by running extra lessons on a Saturday - on a voluntary basis.  Playing it forward is something we at HABandBF encourage with all of our students.

Next... he accepted a primary school job (although he was trained for secondary school in accountancy) He accepted this job because it was his old primary school, close to his home and he would be able to help the children out of hours as well as during formal school time.  

With his Newly Qualified Teacher pay he repaid his extended family members who had leant him money for registration, he built onto the one room so that every family member has their own room and he held a THANK YOU event - which was exactly like an isiZulu wedding (hundreds of people, slaughtered goats, huge marquee and decorated tables etc.) to thank all of the people who had helped him on his journey.   Including myself and other team members from HABandBF.

And all of this ... the repayment, the building and the quasi wedding... with his first 9 months pay.

Since then Bonga has married and he put his wife and younger siblings through tertiary education.  He now has a child.  The kraal has several houses which he has had built.  He self funded his own B.Com. Accounting Hons. and still works in the same Primary School .... not because he has to but because it makes his heart happy and his soul soar.  

As I said - I LOVE this work!

Links:

• Website
• Instagram

The HABandBF Team works busily throughout the year – most are volunteers and all do the work for the joy of helping to make life better for individuals within the area of the Valley of 1000 Hills.  In Spring, those attending schools and tertiary institutions are revising and writing their exams;  HABandBF takes this opportunity to review what we have achieved this year and plan for the following year. 

In this report we celebrate the CAO Project Team. The ‘CAO Project’ is named after the Central Applications Office through which Matrics (final year school learners, usually aged 18) apply to universities in KZN (KwaZulu Natal, the province in South Africa where Hillcrest Advice Bureau and Bursary fund is based).

This team delivers the best value for money in terms of achieving one of our core aims to help disadvantaged members of the community lift themselves out of the poverty cycle.  Through their workshops over 900 matrics from disadvantaged schools are given the tools and understandings to make good and appropriate choices for what they will do after matric.  The academically brightest are financially supported with the R250 (+- £10/ $13) CAO fee - thus accessing NSFAS student funding and entering tertiary education or  vocational training without the anxiety or huge financial burden of finding registration fees.

Sakhile was a beneficiary of the CAO Project in 2021.  Sakhile, from Kwantebeni High, studied Engineering Technology in Computer Engineering at Cape Penisular University of Technology with a hand up from HABandBF in the form of R250 CAO fee and a laptop suitable for his engineering studies.   Now working as an intern with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) in Hermanus he has made the most of his bright mind and hard working ethos to break out of the poverty cycle.

Thanks to our donors, 97 top Matrics in nine schools in the Valley of 1000 Hills could apply to the CAO without having to worry about where to find the application fee.  Through WhatsApp groups we alert them to closing dates and bursary opportunities.  We shall continue to monitor them for as long as they need it. 

Our workshops have helped 900 Matrics to identify their ‘Working personality’, research their dream career and learn how to do a ‘reality check’ before making applications for post-school education. 

Of the 84 high fliers on our programme in 2024, 41 are studying at universities and TVET colleges and 16 others attended Gap Year Workshops we ran in March to help improve their chances next year.

So far this year we have already encouraged 1 000 Grade 9 learners in eight schools to focus on their aptitudes and long-term goals when choosing their subjects for Grade 10 and to consider TVET College options.  Two of these workshops were attended by parents.  We encourage parents to attend at all of the schools, but some do not have the space to accommodate parents and children in the same room.