South African Computer Lab for 450 Children

Dear Friend,

Each quarter, we are asked to submit a report on the status of our GlobalGiving projects. As you know, our goal for this initiative is to build a computer lab for 450 students in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa. If we are ultimately successful in funding this project, we will effectively raise the school’s computer literacy rate from 0% to 100%. The entire region has already been affected by our computer labs in three other schools, and we are thrilled to be extending a computer lab right now in a nearby high school of 800 students.

We will not be satisfied, though, until every child has a command of the essentials. Toward that end, we respectfully ask you to share the project link with family, friends, and colleagues and ask if your company offers corporate matching. Technology is here to stay, and any child without exposure early and without mastery later will struggle to succeed in tertiary studies and to find a career commensurate with twenty-first century advancements. Thank you for doing what you can to ensure that the children at a rural primary school in South Africa get the break they deserve.

Martha T. Cummings

Universal Promise
Executive Director

Dear Friend,

Each quarter, we are asked to submit a report on the status of our GlobalGiving projects. As you know, our goal is to build a computer lab for 450 students in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa. For students to succeed in the twenty-first century, mastering technology is required.

Links:

• Before & After Transformations
• Local Empowerment
• Volunteer with Us

Dear Supporters:

Each quarter, we are asked to submit a report on the status of our GlobalGiving projects. As you know, our goal is to build a computer lab for 450 students in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa. For students to succeed in the twenty-first century, they must learn how to master computers for myriad uses.

We have an incredible update about the progress of this project since the last time I wrote. KPMG, one of the BIG 4 accounting firms in the USA, generously donated 30 laptops for this lab! We are SO grateful to impact-minded KPMG for embracing an investment in technology and education as a means to achieve and sustain equity in South Africa.

Their donation is a game-changer and is why the cost of this project has gone down dramatically, because now we need to raise funds only to renovate the lab space. What a gift!

If we are successful in this mission, we will effectively bring the computer literacy rate in the region much closer to 100%. Toward that end, we respectfully ask you to share the project link with family, friends, and colleagues and ask if your company offers corporate matching.

We believe global equity will be reached only when everyone has access to quality education, and we also believe that providing twenty-first century technology to rural schoolchildren is a major step in that direction.

Thank you for your support.

Martha T. Cummings

Universal Promise
Executive Director

Dear Supporters:

We are writing from South Africa now, as we’re here to check on our myriad projects across four schools serving 3,000 students. Just today, we spent upwards of eight hours at St. Ignatius Primary School, the hopeful recipient of the computer laboratory this project has targeted. The educators and students are so grateful for our support, and we remain so appreciative of the chance to interact with such vibrant and skilled children and adults.

We have a long way to go to fund St. Ignatius Primary School's lab, but we are not losing hope. Why? Fortunately, we have had success finding outside sponsors for the laptops, so now we are in need of funding for the preparation of the future lab space and the computer software that parallels the countrywide curricular mandate.

We would be grateful for your support and equally grateful if you were to spread the word to your family and friends on our behalf. We believe global equity will be reached only when everyone has access to quality education, and we also believe that providing twenty-first century technology to rural schoolchildren is a major step in that direction.

Thank you for spending a moment to read, and thank you, too, for forwarding this email to anyone you think has similar goals for children, no matter where they may live.

Best wishes, and here’s to the power of Ubuntu!

Martha T. Cummings

Universal Promise
Executive Director

Links:

• Strategic Plan 2022
• What's UP Now
• Projects

Dear Friends:

As you may know, we seek out underserved, underachieving schools in one region of South Africa and explain our singular focus on education. In partnership, we then invite South African administrators, educators, parents, and students each to formulate a Top 10 Wish List that they believe will elevate the quality of learning for all. We collect the lists, eliminate items not focused on education, look for overlaps, and meet with administrators to finalize the Top 10.

The computer lab is one of the items on a South African primary school’s Top 10 Wishlist.

We are focusing on earlier items first and will turn more attention to the computer lab as time elapses. Thus far, we have raised only $100 of the $25,000 required to build the lab, so the climb will be a long and steep one.

In other words, we have a long, long way to go, but we, as always, remain hopeful, and we thank you for donating to this cause.

The accompanying photograph is of a lab we built at another school located just a few miles away from the primary school featured in this project. This is the dream for this initiative, too. 

Martha T. Cummings

Universal Promise
Executive Director