Perspectives

We have now spent a week at the CIDA school in Johannesburg. Sara, who visited the school in March last year, was deeply touched by the visit and wanted to return.

The many years of apartheid and oppression have denied the large majority of the black people education, leaving them doomed to a life in poverty. With an average monthly salary of around R1000 (SEK 1300), and university costs amounting to several times that amount, it is still impossible for most black families to send their children to any form of higher education.

This is where CIDA comes into the picture. The CIDA school’s philosophy is simple: Take the smartest kids from each village, and give them an excellent education that they can afford. Or rather, the village can afford. The monthly cost for food and housing of R500 (SEK 650) is gathered through contributions; an auntie giving R10, the school teacher R15 etc. Finally let those kids go back to their village, and spread what they have learned. In Africa an old proverb says that “it takes a village to raise a child”. At CIDA, they say: “it takes a child to raise a village”.

The school gets funds exclusively from donors, and has been very successful in getting support both in South Africa and abroad. Donors include Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, and many large companies in SA.

We participated in one of the first lectures that was given by Dr. Melanie Brown from New York for the first year students. The topic was “greatness”, how we all can find the greatness within us, and that it is not only a few persons that can be “great”, but all of us. Throughout these session it was moving and encouraging to listen to these young guys and girls in various exercises talking in front of the group about who they admire most, their life goals etc. It’s hard to describe the feeling of hearing a boy from a poor and troubled background express admiration of his mother and boldly state that his goal is to become happy and to share this happiness with his community!

Our main task during our week has been to explore how volunteers could be put to better use. The interest in working with CIDA is high, but it is difficult to accept visitors without a clear purpose and process. This work was done together with philanthropy power-woman Christine Downton and in the end presented to parts of the CIDA management.

In addition, we had a large number of one-to-one discussions with students, who wanted to ask questions about everything from how they can succeed in their mathematics studies to how they could start a micro-bank. We have been impressed and moved by the students at CIDA and we’ll be back for sure!

Ps. A special hello to any student from CIDA reading this!! Good luck with your studies and with achieving your goals.