More and more students with real potential are coming from disadvantaged communities. You have the power to enable them to live their dream and change their future, by giving them the financial resources needed for success. [More]

Sponsoring a Bursary in your name – or that of a loved one – is one of the most personal gifts you can make, with the option of meeting the beneficiary of the bursary and following his or her progress through to graduation.

Can you imagine flying from Sweden to Johannesburg every year to meet a group of students? This is what Inger & Tuve Johannesson and Helen & Hans Wiklund do every year as part of their scholarship programme that supports five talented Witsies. [Special friends from Sweden visit students]

The new Arthur Bleksley Scholarship in Computational and Applied Maths is open for gifts. To read more about the man who has inspired this initiative click here. Or to contribute to this Scholarship, click here.

See also:

Pay it Forward Bursary
TATA Africa supports Wits Students
The Sid & Zillah Matus Bursary
Timken Bursary
WHV Perrow Family Bursary

 

“Attending university was a life-changing experience for me.  Like most parents, mine had high hopes and expectations for my future, but lacked the financial resources that would enable them to fund me to go to university.  

Financial support from the Private Sector in South Africa made it possible for me to study Mathematics at Fort Hare, and later the Rhodes Trust afforded me the opportunity of a lifetime to study at Oxford University.  I owe a great deal of my success to the generosity of others”.
- Vice Chancellor and Principal. Prof. Loyiso Nongxa.

A second year medical school student - Thato Ndlovu - has been selected as the first recipient of the new 'Pay it Forward' Bursary created by former Wits student Bianca Brebnor.

Thato - who obtained 5 distinctions in Matric and achieved very good marks in her first year - is a most impressive young lady: mature; confident; extremely well spoken; good-natured; enthusiastic; vibrant and motivated. She lives in Soweto and travels two hours to varsity in the morning and two hours home in the evening.

Thato is pictured alongside with Raelene Robertson, former Donor Relations Officer
in the DFO.

Every year there is an increasing demand for Wits to award financial assistance to underprivileged students. We believe that the only determining criteria for entry should be that one is academically-deserving with the potential to succeed.

At Wits, we strive to recruit talented students to our institution, whatever their backgrounds. Wits stimulates gifted and diverse students by harnessing their creative talent, ideas and energy to build confidence and leadership skills that will empower them to focus on and to achieve, in their chosen fields.

Every year approximately 4 000 financially-needy students apply to 470 external donors and generally the demand exceeds the resources available.

Giving to bursaries and scholarships has an economic, public and social impact. The economic impact is that it would increase the philanthropic support of donors to the bursaries and scholarships fund which will reduce the financial burden placed on families with an income of less than R100 000 per annum.

Most importantly, Wits graduates raise the profile of the industries that employ them and also contribute to the supply of scarce, high-level skills into the South African economy.

The social impact is that donor-supported assistance touches each life profoundly, both financially and psychologically, and has given many talented students the opportunity to access tertiary education. Individual support rapidly creates a ripple effect that influences more people to give because they believe in the concept of ubuntu.

Today’s successful student becomes a role model and inspiration for future generations.

For more information click here