Canon Collins Trust is a charity founded in 1981 by the British Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Named after it's first Chairman Canon John Collins who died in 1982, its object was to assist South African and Namibian refugee students to gain the higher education and training denied them under the apartheid system. Students attended institutions in the United Kingdom and in independent African states.

In 1990, following the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and the unbanning of anti-apartheid organisations, Canon Collins Trust developed a scholarship programme in South Africa, mainly at Historically Disadvantaged Institutions (HDIs). Individual black students were supported mostly on science and education courses at a range of universities and technikons. At the same time the study programme in the United Kingdom was continued.

In 1999 the Trust expanded its remit and begun supporting students from Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi as well as South Africa and Namibia.