80 students awarded study bursaries by the City of Cape Town

 Simamkele Vakaza

27 January 2016

The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee has approved the list of beneficiaries for the Social Development and Early Childhood Development Directorate’s first ever allocation of grant-in-aid funding.

The matter will go before full Council tomorrow for final approval.

 At the beginning of the 2015/16 financial year, the Directorate issued a call for community organisations working across the same areas of focus to apply for access to a share of the R2 million that was made available.

Mayoral Committee Member for Social Development and Early Childhood Development, Suzette Little says…..

“Our Youth of today are our future generation of leaders and the best legacy we can leave behind is to up-skill them and given the tools to take this country forward successfully.

She says “The tough economic climate is increasingly taking its toll on households with many having to prioritise basic necessities to survive.”

She added that “This means less or no income left to fund tertiary studies and often may learners have to go out and seek employment to supplement household income.”

A lack of further education just perpetuates the cycle of poverty. We therefore see our external bursary program as one of our key projects to create economic freedom for our future generation of residents. External bursaries were handed to 80 students today towards students who are going to study in more than 40 fields for the 2016 academic year. They were chosen out of 3 816 bursary applications, and mentors will be assigned to each student, and upon completion of their studies, they will be placed in the funded position at the City of Cape Town for the period of the same duration for which the bursary was granted, she concluded”