Background
The Sumbandila Trust is a non-profit organisation in the field of secondary education which exists to meet a particular need. Hidden in the rural villages of Limpopo Province you'll find the real face of poverty in South Africa. They're the old dumping grounds for people who didn't fit the needs of the Apartheid economy and, to a very real extent, they still serve the same purpose. It is the old who live here, the jobless, the young, frustrated school-leavers. And the children. They're hungry, these children very often literally so. But more so, hungry, desperately hungry, for opportunity, for the chance to make life different - for themselves, for their families, for their villages. Sumbandila exists to help some of them to get there. The Trust seeks out the brightest and most determined of these children as they complete primary school and offers them support for their entire secondary education.
For a small number, this means the provision of full bursaries at good schools. These are, in the widest sense of the term, full scholarships they have to be. They cover tuition fees, the cost of housing and feeding them, mentoring and guiding them in a dedicated hostel, clothing them, providing their books, their toiletries, their bus fares to and from their homes every weekend, their medical needs. Computers and books are needed, educational software and extra-lessons, if they are to catch up with their peers from more privileged backgrounds.For a few more, it means, through a partnership with the Study Trust, which has a long and proven record in this field, financial support with school fees and the cost of books and transport and regular academic support through Saturday and Vacation schools.
The members of the Sumbandila Trust and its supporters are intensely aware that, if all we succeed in doing is to take individuals from poverty and give them access to careers and a comfortable lifestyle through a privileged education, we are failing the aims of the Trust, failing the needs of the community, failing the potential of our scholars to make a difference. Each child must be aware that, with their opportunity comes responsibility, a duty and a commitment to sumba ndila? - to show the way.
How did Sumbandila start?
When Chrizelda Sibani, the schoolgirl daughter of an illiterate farm labourer, heard that the wife of neighbouring farmer was a teacher, she walked 18 km to ask Leigh Bristow for help with her studies. Leigh took her into her home, saw her through a successful final examination, then arranged for her to spend time working with friends in London. Chrizelda is now a teacher, serving her home community. This instance of high potential realised against the odds showed Leigh what could be done and made her determined to do it for others. Where so many see only the immensity of the problem, Leigh Bristow sees individual children who need to be given access to opportunity. And she is determined to provide it for them. She is the founder- in 2007 - the fundraiser, the inspiration and keystone of the Sumbandila Trust. Without her, a real future for some of these children would remain a wistful dream.
What does the future hold?
The need is immense, not only in the Vhembe District or the Limpopo Province but throughout the country and beyond. We are still in the early stages of pioneering a particular, very personalised approach to the education and in-depth development of children from impoverished and deeply disadvantaged backgrounds and we have barely scratched the surface. We believe that what we offer is what is needed? It will be years before we see the first results and a generation perhaps before it fully flowers but there is no place here for the quick-fix solution.
All that prevents us from expanding to include more and more gifted but impoverished children in the opportunity that Sumbandila provides is a lack of funds.
Where does it operate?
At present the Trust operates in Vhembe, the northernmost district in Limpopo, South Africa's northernmost Province. The district boasts luxurious tourist lodges, hunting farms, cattle ranches, lush fruit farms, profitable mining operations and two small towns, centres of commerce and administration. These are interspersed with sprawling, crowded rural villages - sources of migrant labour, areas of endemic poverty and joblessness, of high HIV/Aids infection rates, in which overstretched and under-resourced health, educational and social work agencies struggle to provide the most basic services. It is from these latter areas that Sumbandila recruits its students. |
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Background
How did Sumbandila start?
What does the future hold?
Where does it operate?
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