Ikamvayouth is a non-profit organization based in South Africa whose mission is to enable disadvantaged youth to pull themselves and each other out of poverty and into tertiary education or employment.
Why We Invested
South Africa’s schools face considerable challenges, including deeply entrenched inequality. Sixty percent of students in the poorest economic quartile are functionally illiterate, compared with just 4 percent of the richest quartile. Evidence-based pupil-level interventions, targeted specifically at children from deprived families, are urgently needed and one promising approach is homework clubs and mentored tuition. IkamvaYouth does just that. Volunteer mentors—university students or graduates—hailing from similarly disadvantaged backgrounds work with students and facilitate “last-mile” access to open-education resources like Khan Academy.
Young people need supportive environments to thrive. IkamvaYouth is bridging the gap between the two school systems that operate in our country (functional and dysfunctional) by providing high quality after-school programmes. Our results speak for themselves and more importantly our beneficiaries return to tutor the next cohort - showing how highly they value the programme! We couldn’t do it without support from our committed donors (past and present) - thank you!
Hope Chidawanyika, CEO, IkamvaYouth