Ubuntu Education Fund

Our Story

	Co-Founders, Banks Gwaxula and Jacob Lief in Zwide Township.

Two men of different race and generation - one South African, one American - are partners in a common cause. From a chance meeting in 1998 in New Brighton Township, South Africa, Banks Gwaxula and Jacob Lief came to realise that they shared more than a common interest in soccer. The two shared an abiding belief in the power of education.

Banks invited Jacob, a travelling student, to live in his home as family and work with him as a teacher in his township school. In the townships, Jacob witnessed people overcoming the desperation of poverty through the power of community. He learned that townships schools lacked resources taken for granted in even the poorest communities in the United States. Classrooms made out of abandoned shipping containers held as many as 60 students at a time. Children shared few desks and fewer chairs. Teachers taught in front of blank boards in schools that had not owned a piece of chalk in years. Yet students with neither books nor pencils listened attentively to their teachers for hours on end. For despite the immeasurable hardships, communities remained dedicated to the belief that education would allow their children to overcome Apartheid's legacy of poverty, disease and inequality.

Six months after their meeting, Banks and Jacob founded Ubuntu Education Fund. Today Ubuntu is reaching over 40,000 children with life-saving health and educational resources and services. We are proud of the numbers, but most of all we are proud of our staff and the children who are taking advantage of being the first generation of free South Africans.

Along the way Banks and Jacob were joined by dozens of people dedicated to making their community a better place. Ubuntu invested in training them, and every day our communities reap the rewards. A bond between two people has become a family of 50 employees and a life force for entire communities. A small grassroots project has become an organisation with a strategic plan for long-term, sustainable development. We began in a small storage place in an elementary school. Our new centrally located 2500 square foot headquarters in Zwide Township is a symbol of hope. Our first strategy was to hold meetings amongst community members and listen to their ideas. We have never changed course, we have never stopped meeting and listening. We now have a model for development and methods of evaluating all of our initiatives.

Those same children who inspired Jacob and Banks to start Ubuntu Education Fund in 1999 are now about to graduate from high school. We have made a difference in their lives. Where we saw decaying infrastructure, we now see libraries and computer centres-where they saw hope, they now see true progress.