Scholarship Fund

 

The Magdalene Scholarship Fund is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to helping the children of South Africa prepare to become leaders through education.

VIDEO
The fund helps children of Alexandra Township attend Affordable Preschool, including kids who live across the street from the preschool at Nkensani's Home for Abused and Abandoned Children. To see these adorable preschoolers singing a song, click here.

MISSION
The fund has a very specific mission: to create hope in an impoverished, bleak part of the world by providing scholarships, books, uniforms and school supplies for needy children attending Bovet Primary School and Affordable Preschool in Alexandra Township, South Africa. Since the fund has no overhead and is operated on a volunteer basis, 100% of funds raised go directly to fun program activities.

HISTORY
The Magdalene Scholarship Fund was established in 2000 by Mark Mathabane as a means to provide support directly to school children without having to rely on big-name charities that have employees and high overhead costs. The fund is named after his mother, Magdalene, who, despite being denied the opportunity to attend school because of her gender, struggled and sacrificed to ensure that her firstborn son became the first member of the family to attend school. She believed, rightly it turned out, that if she succeeded in educating her firstborn, then there was hope for her other six children, all of whom eventually went to school, and three to college in the U.S."

ONLY $16 PER YEAR
For the equivalent of only $16 - a sum that is far beyond the means of many families in Alexandra, whose main priority is survival - the fund can pay school fees for one student at Bovet for one year. With your generous help, the students of Bovet can use education to realize their dreams and to make a difference in the world. The fund’s long-term goal is to help Bovet School acquire facilities such as a library and computer lab and to provide scholarships to Bovet graduates who could not otherwise afford to attend high school and college.