Vunene Do Good Movement

The Elevate Prize funding would help us to scale our school support program to the most rural villages in South Africa, and to establish digitals hubs for youth training and empowerment in deep rural areas.

The school support program would help to address the school dropout rate which is prevalent in most rural areas due to lack of support for learners. Through the funding, we could keep as many learners in school and empower them to improve their grades and hopefully make it tertiary. 

The digital hubs would help to empower unemployed youth to increase their employability or spark entrepreneurship so that they can become economically active and contribute to their community’s development.  

I am just a Shangaan boy from Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga province. I am the 3rd born of 8 siblings, the only one in the family, and few in the community, to ever graduate from university.  And I think it should change. 

Now 36 years old and a social runner based in Gauteng province, I still remain connected to my small village in Bushbuckridge called Hlamalani ka Mpisane. In 2015, I was obese and decided to start running with the goal to lose excess weight and lead a healthy lifestyle. I was able to lose 40kg and have chosen a healthy lifestyle since then. Whilst doing my MBA personal reflection, I was compelled to reflect on my purpose and legacy I wanted to leave behind. The reflections led me to revisit my passion for running and how I could use it as a tool for good. 

Having been born in a very poor family background and rural community, I had always wished to give back my community and help others to be better versions of themselves. Vunene Do Good Movement fusses my love for running, to create awareness and raise funds, in order to champion access to education and youth empowerment.

We are solving for three things:

1. Access to education for young learners

2. Access to health and menstrual education for young girls

3. Youth unemployment 

The biggest problem in SA is poverty and unemployment. We believe that the problem requires different approaches to tackle, including the three issues above, which are a big problem in the communities where we work. 

Due to poverty, learners dropout of school because their parents or guardians do not have the means to support them. The little money or grants they receive is spent on food, which is often not enough. Our school support program intends to bridge the gap by providing necessities such as school shoes and uniform so that kids can stay in school.

Young girls miss up to 50 days of school, according to research, because they lack access to adequate sanitary towels due to high cost. Missing on school has a significant impact on the grades of girl children. Some eventually lose interest in school and dropout along the way. 

This then adds to the already high rate of youth unemployment which is at over 54% in SA. The digital skills program is meant to bridge this gap.

Our approach is innovative because we aim to address the vicious cycle of poverty and unemployment. We aim to achieve this by putting measures in place to support school going children so that they do not dropout of school. 

The introduction of youth training and empowerment opportunities then targets the youth that is currently unemployed to help them become active and useful members of their communities.  

Our vision is to empower one million lives by 2030. 

Giving learners schools shoes, uniform and sanitary pads for girls, may seem like a useless effort. However, we have personal experience from our co-founder that it does work as he is a shining example of how support given to him during high school motivated him to become the success he is today.

Each learner being supported is registered in our database. We conduct regular visits, once a quarter, to the schools to check on the progress of learners and the effectiveness of our intervention. We work with the schools and School Governing Body in each school to ensure that parents become active supporters of their children to stay in school and continue to learn. 

Eventually, Vunene Do Good Movement intends to build an end-to-end support program where learners are supported through their entire schooling journey up to university. The graduates would then become alumni of the organisation and do their bit to serve their communities through our various programs.