SILIBONA EDUCATION TRUST

The Silibona Education Trust exists to provide financial assistance and mentoring support at university level, to disadvantaged students. Scholars applying to the trust should possess a strong academic record and be proven leaders within their communities through sport, art or community service. The Trust has a preference for women candidates.

The aim of the trust is to provide financial support and mentoring that will assist scholars who face economic hardship, to complete their tertiary studies. The Trust will work with selected South African universities to identify potential candidates. Scholarships will be paid directly to the university. Scholarships are awarded yearly and those holding multi-year scholarships are subject to an annual review.

In the wake of the student fees crisis and the #feesmustfall campaign, Yaw dipped into his network by e-mail and used a Facebook post to garner support for an initiative to assist students aspiring towards a university degree. Clinton responded to Yaw with the idea of setting up a formal trust to manage the contributions and the Silibona Educational Trust started taking shape.

The thought behind the funding of the trust was that if we could get people to commit to R10,000 donation per year for 4 years that would enable us to select students and be able to commit to support them throughout their undergraduate studies. The key was to have a sustained model that would enable us to slowly grow the beneficiaries of the trust without risking the funding for those that we already have in place. Whilst getting a commitment like this from donors is fantastic we are happy to receive any donations as every little bit helps!

An extremely important principle of the trust is that as close as possible to 100% of all funds will be spent on the students with zero management or administration fees being taken by anyone who works with or for the trust. All of the people involved are doing this on a volunteer basis in between managing their normal jobs and family life. Many people are not in a position to make a monetary commitment to the trust but have instead donated their skills and time, which has been invaluable in setting up the trust and keeping the trust working for the benefit of the students.

Whilst paying for students fees is clearly a very important aspect of the trust we felt that it was not enough to just hand over the money and walk away from the students. We need to get an understanding of the student’s challenges that they face. By getting to know them better we can support them. To enable this process to work as well as possible we have created a mentorship program where every student has their own mentor. The students and their mentors meet up at least once a month to have a face to face catch up with their mentor however they (as well as any other member of the trust) are available 24/7 for the students should the need arise. The next step being that once they have graduated to once again reach out to our network and hopefully be able to place them in contact with job prospects and internships.

Currently the Trust is working with the University of Cape Town and University of Kwazulu-Natal to support 21 students but the aim is to roll out to other universities across South Africa as we grow.

 ** S18A Tax Certificate is available for all donations made by South African Tax Residents.

** The Silibona Educational Trust is a Level 1 B-BBEE Contributor (135% B-BBEE Procurement Recognition Level).

** All Trustees and Exco members work on a volunteer basis with no administration or management fee being charged on donations received by the trust to ensure that as close as 100% as possible of donations received are for the benefit of our students.

BANK EFT

EFT charges 0% of the donation.

--

**Preferred Payment Method

--

SILIBONA EDUCATIONAL TRUST

BANK: FIRST NATIONAL BANK             ACC TYPE: Business Cheque             ACC NUMBER: 62629266463    BRANCH: Vineyard Road             BRANCH CODE: 250655

--

PAYPAL

PAYPAL charges 3.9% of the donation.

Please email SILIBONA EDUCATIONAL TRUST at cmartin@silibonatrust.org.za for a PAYPAL invoice and payment link.

--

SNAPSCAN

Snapscan charges 3.42% of the donation.

--

GIVENGAIN

GivenGain charges 5% of the donation.

--

https://www.givengain.com/cause/7775/campaigns/17613/

EXCO MEMBERS

LERATO NDLOVU

MONICA SHUPIKAI SIMMONS

EMMA TAYA DARCH

MANDY COBBING

LUCIA KNIGHT

SILIBONA TRUST THANKS THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE FOR THEIR HELP

VICTORIA MCLACHLAN

SUSANA KENNEDY

UNATHI KUNENE

DEBBIE JOHNSTON

NELA FOREJTOVA

LINDY EMSLEY

ANTHONY LEE MARTIN