First Beneficiary: CIDA City Campus

CIDA, A Model for Education in South Africa

D.E.F. launches its program efforts with the CIDA City Campus, located in Johannesburg, South Africa, as the initial beneficiary of support. CIDA (Community and Individual Development Association) City Campus has reinvented traditional models of higher education.

Every student at this higher education institution is on a scholarship and comes from a financially disadvantaged background. The deeply felt mission behind CIDA is to provide mass-scale, quality higher education and to provide an effective human development strategy for South Africa. Its vision is to contribute to the economic and social transformation of the sub-continent of Africa.
CIDA (Community and Individual Development Association) was established to provide higher education designed to encourage human, economic and social development for the large population of South African youth living in disadvantaged communities. In the mid 1990s, CIDA began by running projects in township schools designed to upgrade the levels of education offered to students. With this focus on greater skill building, high school students were putting great effort into passing their final year and succeeding, only to be stuck in a spiral of poverty with no money and basic resources to further their education and little possibility of finding work with a 70% youth unemployment rate. Thus, the impetus for starting an institution that could be a model for low-cost higher education for Africa’s poor was established.

In 2000, CIDA City Campus was launched in Johannesburg, South Africa as Africa’s first virtually free college to provide opportunity for the huge numbers of students who had no access to furthering their education. The school combined self-development initiatives with an academic focus on a business degree program, along with skill-building programs for students not yet prepared for higher education. Student service to the school and the student’s own community was also a fundamental principle.

CIDA City Campus currently serves nearly 1,000 students of great financial need who are benefiting from full scholarship in pursuit of their business degrees. CIDA City Campus students achieved a collective pass rate from 2004 to 2008 of 70%, and a corresponding 80% employment rate for graduates. With the access to higher education, we see CIDA City Campus graduates getting well-paying jobs that help them support not just themselves but also their extended families. For further information visit www.cida.co.za.

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PHOTOGALLERIES

CIDA City Campus Photos — Coming Soon!

WEBSITE

To find out more about CIDA, visit cidafoundation.org.

CIDA STUDENT PROFILE: Lerato

Lerato is 23 years old and comes from Katlehong, a township in Johannesburg, South Africa. She lived with her mom, a single parent, and her older brother, who was recently released from prison. Around the time of Lerato’s birth, her mom had to have her hand amputated due to a car accident. Consequently, her mother was unable to work and the family was forced to survive on government social grants.

Like so many of her peers, Lerato was unemployed when she completed her high school education in 2004. To survive and provide for her family, she began selling food at a taxi stand and eventually managed to get a job at a department store. It was during that time that she began to dream of going to college. She learned about CIDA City Campus, an innovative institution for higher education where every student is on scholarship and comes from a financially disadvantaged background. She applied and was accepted. She began her studies in January 2006 and currently resides at a CIDA dormitory while she studies. Today, Lerato continues to be the breadwinner of her family despite the full course load she is juggling to earn her bachelors degree in business administration from CIDA.

Lerato describes herself as, “young and passionate. I accept challenges one after the next. Seeing change in people’s lives means a lot to me. I like to touch other souls.”

For further information in CIDA, visit www.cida.co.za and www.cidafoundation.org.

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