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.

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 in Alexandra Township, South Africa.

The Magdalene Scholarship Fund was established in 2000 by Mark Mathabane. 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.

The Bovet School was pivotal to Mathabane’s education and is the setting for many wrenching and inspiring scenes from Kaffir Boy. Under the segregated apartheid education system, needy students were beaten for not paying their schools fees or not having the proper uniform and books. Though apartheid is gone and needy students are no longer physically punished, Bovet continues to struggle financially in the new South Africa. Its students are among the poorest in the country, and include many AIDS orphans and the children of refugees from Mozambique. Most of these diligent, hardworking children are the first members of their families to attend school, and their education is vital to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and dependency.

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.