WATCH: Helping Hand makes study aid fund available to needy students
Flip Buys, chairman of the Solidarity Movement, and the economist, Dawie Roodt, emphasized how important tertiary education is and that an after-school qualification is the best investment for a young person's future.
Welfare organisation Solidarity Helping Hand’s study fund centre has made millions of rands in study aid available to Afrikaans students in 2021.
“We live in difficult times that offer greater challenges and, therefore, solutions to these challenges are often bigger,” said Stefan Pieterse, head of the centre, during a media conference at Helping Hand’s head office in Centurion on Monday.
“In 2009, we were able to allocate study aid to the value of R984 000 with the help of our donors, the public and the business world to needy students. This year, we can proudly announce that the SFS will make a total of R48-million available in study aid funds. With that, we will be able to help approximately 1 200 Afrikaans young people to study at accredited tertiary institutions in the country. ”
Solidarity movement chairman Flip Buys and economist Dawie Roodt, emphasised how important tertiary education was and that an after-school qualification was the best investment for a young person’s future.
“Research conducted by the Solidarity Research Institute in 2018, found that 20% of young Afrikaners leave school without matric. Only 27% of Afrikaner children go to university and 73% of young Afrikaners will never obtain a university qualification,”Pieterse said.
He also spoke about statistics from research that Helping Hand did in 2020, among 480 graduate SFS students. It showed that 71% of unqualified young people earned between R0 and R10 000 per month.
“A young person’s chance of earning above R25 000 per month is 1% if you do not have a tertiary qualification. In terms of employment, 86% of young qualified people get a job. About 71% of qualified young people earn between R10 000 and R25 000 per month.”
Pieterse said that Helping Hand SFS has been able to help a total of 6 300 students in the past 12 years of its existence. In addition, about 200 existing study funds and almost R245-million in loans have been disbursed so far.
Pieterse also said that the organisation was “very grateful for every donation that makes the study fund possible and that statistics speak of the trust that the public and corporate South Africa place in Helping Hand to break poverty barriers”.
“While we are very grateful for every donor’s contribution that made this milestone possible, our hearts also go out to the almost 800 students who, we unfortunately, could not offer assistance. There are simply not enough funds. Therefore, we remain dependent on our donors to help even more young people,” Pieterse said.
Hannes Noëth, Helping Hand¹s executive director said: “We realise that we must do everything in our power to make our children believe in the future. We need to provide opportunities. We need to make it possible for them to take on the future. Of course, the need of our people is too great for us to handle alone. We can’t help everyone donate as far as we can.”
Dawie Roodt speaks at the Solidarity Helping Hand’s Study Fund Centre (SFS) press briefing:
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