Empowering South African Youth Through Education

This month at The Umkhumbane Schools Project, we are celebrating with Yanga (pictured here) – and the many other Umkhumbane Schools Project learners who have been busy accepting offers of admission to universities and colleges across South Africa. We are so grateful to all of you in our GlobalGiving family for making these celebrations possible!

Yanga completed his Grade 12 year at Mayville Secondary School last December and has been offered a place at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN) to pursue a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree.  Not only that, Yanga has also been offered a sought-after Moshal Scholarship!  The USP has been a nominating organization for the Moshal since 2014, and we are so proud of Yanga for earning this award and becoming the USP’s 20^th Moshal Scholar.

When the 2023 school year ended in December, our seniors finished their grueling National Senior Certificate exams and then waited for their results until late in January.  Firm offers of college admission then began coming through and the mad scramble to accept offers and make the transition to college life has been ensuing over the last few weeks.  This has been a busy time for the USP and our rising college students! 

Our learners have been accepted for 2024 to study in fields such as accounting, computer engineering, architecture, chemistry, finance, and IT, and have enrolled at UKZN, the University of Cape Town, the University of Johannesburg, the Durban University of Technology, and the Mangosuthu University of Technology.  We celebrate these hard-earned opportunities for further education and look forward to seeing these bright futures unfold.

Meanwhile, back at the USP, the new school year is up and running.  Our Friday and Saturday maths program has record enrollment this year, with over 500 learners having attended the initial registration day and first classes.  We are bursting at the seams a bit in the community library space that we use for this program and are hoping to expand into another of the larger rooms available there. 

We have also already had two science enrichment programs for our learners with our valued community partners at UKZN and the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI).  This year’s Grade 8 Girls Groups are commencing this week, and the garden spaces we installed at Bonela Secondary last year are in full bloom!

All of these developments and more are underway thanks to your partnership with the USP through GlobalGiving.  We are eager to bring you along with us on this year’s journey, through this and future reports about all that you are making possible with your generous support for our work.

You are making a difference in many young people’s lives.  We look forward to sharing with you the joy of seeing their smiles, their expanded horizons, and their personal growth in the exciting year ahead.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Martha