News
2008 News Releases
Released 29th January 2008
UK Big Lottery Fund Gives Boost to
Education in Rural South Africa
Canon Collins Trust has secured a major boost from the UK Big Lottery Fund for a rural South African education project in Northern Cape. £338,710 has been awarded to the ‘Supportive Structures for Primary Education’ project in Hantam. From March 2008, Canon Collins Trust will be partnering Hantam Community Education Trust (HCET) in this pioneering project to bring better education to local children.
People in the Colesberg area are desperately in need of effective education to help them break the current cycle of unemployment and poverty. Education could give them the skills they require to generate income and lift themselves out of poverty, but their current schooling does not equip them for this. Achievement in primary schools is so low in many rural areas that the Development Bank of South Africa has condemned it as a breach of human rights.
Working with our local partners, who have a long history of providing services in the Colesberg area, we will address underachievement in primary schools on two fronts - language and health. The project will test the ‘Supportive structures’ programme at three schools in Northern Cape province. It will target 910 children between the ages of 5 and 8 at these schools, as well as their families who will benefit from health education. The pupils at these schools are from a range of backgrounds, and include children of farmworkers, Karoo nomads and those living on squatter camps outside rural towns. In various guises, they are all disadvantaged children with few opportunities ahead of them, unless their education is radically improved.
Canon Collins Chief Executive Sarah Nancollas outlines the bid-winning project: ‘HCET, having piloted a programme to remove the linguistic barriers that children face, now want to work with us to expand the project to include a health support programme and roll it out to two further schools, providing the ‘supportive structures’ needed for South African early childhood learning and development to succeed.
By testing the ‘Supportive structures’ programme at both state and foundation-run schools, and in different languages, we intend to create a model for how primary education can be effectively delivered to disadvantaged South Africans. We will be running our project in Northern Cape, because this allows us to test it in one of South Africa’s most deprived provinces, where poverty is endemic.’
The result of providing health and language support to primary school children will be to improve their grades, health, concentration and attendance, ultimately introducing an education system which will open up opportunities for them in later life and enable them to break the cycle of poverty.
Released 21st January 2008
Calling all Canon Collins Trust Alumni :
Leading southern Africans join new association to create a better southern Africa.
Canon Collins Trust scholarships assist many leading southern Africans in achieving their goals. Thousands of successful Canon Collins Trust alumni permeate southern African society. Now they are getting together to create a network of individuals each of whom aims to make a positive contribution to the region. Canon Collins Trust is calling for alumni to join the network, launched today, by getting in touch with the organisation.
South Africa: Cyrus Rustomjee is one such alumnus. The highly successful Chair of South Africa’s Financial Services Board has an impressive string of qualifications, helped shape South Africa’s Constitution, and has been a representative at the World Bank and IMF. Like his fellow alumni, he wants to give back to his society, and one of his initiatives is the Centre for Economic Training, linked to the University of London.
Lillian Cingo has made an incredible difference to South African society - bringing healthcare to rural South Africa via the Phelophepa Train, astonishingly seeing close to 45,000 people a year and covering 15,000km of rail. Her achievements have rightly been recognised through a string of awards including ‘Woman of the Year’, ‘Nurse of the Year’ and honorary doctorates. Her achievements were boosted by the help she received from Canon Collins Trust to study in the UK.
Zimbabwe: Tendai Chabvuta is the Head of the Human Rights Research Unit with the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. He continues to work with international human rights bodies such as the Human Rights Council and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in a bid to eradicate torture and impunity in Zimbabwe. He is hopeful that his work will help Zimbabwe deal with its beleaguered past and present situation of human rights violations. Tendai is one of the founding members of Students Solidarity, an organization formed to look after the interests of students in institutions of higher learning victimized because of their work for justice and freedom. Through people like Tendai, Canon Collins Trust continues its mission to support positive change.
Malawi: Malla Mabona’s influence improves the lives of women and children in Malawi. She is currently working as a Technical Advisor for the Ministry of Women and Child Development in Malawi as an expert in Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Prior to this she was a Gender Consultant for World Food Programme and has worked for the United Nations Populations Fund Agency. Canon Collins Trust is proud to have enabled her to achieve the skills to help fight on behalf of the most vulnerable people in Malawi.
Mozambique: Fernando Quembo has overcome a great deal to become an influential economics lecturer in Mozambique. From a farming family in a rural village, he has worked incredibly hard to gain skills and qualifications to study Economic Policies for Developing and Transitional Economies in the UK. He has returned to lecture at the Universidade Catolica de Mozambique, using his understanding of macro and micro economics in developing countries to develop programmes for Mozambique’s future economists and help contribute to strategies for development through providing training, consultancy and research. Canon Collins Trust is proud to support people like Fernando to build a better future for their community and their country.
Botswana: Dr Daniel Tau, Executive Director of Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL), and Chairperson of Vision 2016 – leading Botswana’s strategy for socio-economic and political development was sponsored for his PhD at Bath University by Canon Collins Trust. “I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Canon Collins Trust for contributing to my country’s education. I can assure you that I will do the best I can to assist Botswana and Southern Africa’s educational growth. Since BOCODOL offers distance learning within Southern Africa, the Trust has not only assisted me as an individual. Through my influence and contributions to the evolution and implementation of distance learning, the Trust is aiding education in Southern Africa.”
Zambia: Grace Chipalo Mutati is one of just 11 Ophthalmologists in Zambia. Grace is employed by the Ministry of Health and works at the University Teaching hospital as Consultant and Head of the Ophthalmology unit. She is also member of the National Committee for the prevention of Blindness in Zambia, making her one of the few people leading Zambia’s role in VISION 2020, a worldwide campaign that aims to combat avoidable blindness by the year 2020. “If we are to achieve this goal,” Mutati explains, “we need to act at ground level. We need to let communities know there is treatment available and that blindness can be avoidable.” Grace is just one visionary Canon Collins Trust alumnus.
Canon Collins Trust UK Chief Executive, Sarah Nancollas says : ‘Sharing commitment to a better future has brought these influential individuals together as Canon Collins Trust alumni. Creating a forum to inspire, advise and support each other is yet another step forward in advancing their hopes and dreams for a better southern Africa.’ Linda Budaza, Regional Director of Canon Collins Trust calls for alumni to get in touch: ‘together we’re like a family, sharing a related background and purpose for the benefit of all’.
Alumni can go to www.canoncollins.org.uk/scholarships/Alumnipage.php to find out more.
