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THE MAGDALENE SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Hello there, (or as we say in my language, Minjani),

My name is Magdalene Mathabane, and Mark is my firstborn son. I'm very excited that he established a scholarship fund in my name that pays for books, school fees and uniforms for many, many impoverished children in Alexandra, the township outside Johannesburg where I grew up and raised a family.

Mark named the fund after me because he knows how much I believe in the power of education to transform a person's life. When I was growing up in Alexandra in the 1940s, very few parents had the money to send their daughters to school. Like other girls, I never had a chance to finish even first grade. After my father left my mother for another woman, she struggled to raise four children on her own. At age 12, I went to work as a laundress for a very large family in Johannesburg. After I got married, it was very difficult for me to raise seven children under apartheid, especially since I did not know how to read or write. Now that my children are grown, I have enrolled in English classes and am now able to read my favorite book -- the Bible.

Though I never attended school, I've always believed strongly in the value of getting a good education. I believed, deep in my heart, that it would save my children's lives and would be their ticket out of the dead-end life of the ghetto. I struggled and sacrificed a great deal to make sure that Mark and his younger siblings had the opportunity to go to school. My husband beat me for spending food money on the children's books and school uniforms, but I remained determined.

I sent Mark to Bovet Primary School in Alexandra, where most of the students come from destitute families who live -- as we did -- in shacks with no running water, electricity or indoor toilets. I believe that sending Mark to school saved his life. He developed a love for books and reading that transported him out of the ghetto, if only in his mind. I believe that if it weren't for Bovet, my son might have ended up as a thief, a gangster or dead.

Principal Khosa with two students who were outfitted
and whose school fees were paid for
by the Magdalene Scholarship Fund

Having seen firsthand how education can transform and empower lives, my son Mark and I are determined to help needy students like the two girls pictured above who attend Bovet. I invite you to support the Magdalene Scholarship Fund. No donation is too small. Even American students -- like the ones at Sewickley Academy in Pennsylvania and the Blake School in Minneapolis -- have been helping by holding fund raisers, car washes and bake sales.

The scholarship fund pays for uniforms, books, school fees and other needs impoverished students have. These students remind me so much of my children when they were young. They have so much drive, determination and resilience -- all they need is an opportunity.

You can give them that opportunity. Their community, their families and the new South Africa need their contributions as leaders, trained workers and responsible adults. They can become all that and more if you give generously to the scholarship fund.

Thank you for believing in the power of education to change and save lives.

More about Bovet Primary School
Children Who Have Received Help from the Fund
A Poem the Children Wrote To Donors
How the Fund is Managed
How to Make a Donation
The Fund's Privacy Policy
Contact Us

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This site was last edited on
February 22, 2008 10:54 AM Hit Counter

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