Change the world

29/04/2016

This article appeared on the Sowetan Live on 29 April 2016.

http://goo.gl/rYCePV

Students in the blue-collar city of Port Elizabeth will on Friday donate funds they raised to help their compatriots struggling to pay their way through university.

The Student Representative Council at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University launched the campaign in February to assist the high volumes of students who were declined by government’s bursary scheme NSFAS‚ based on “insufficient funds”.

“This number accumulated to over 1‚000 students who could not afford textbooks and could not afford groceries or food for themselves. This was called #enablingDREAMS‚” the SRC said in a statement.

On its initial inception‚ money was collected from the different traffic lights from the motorists of Nelson Mandela Bay. After that was done‚ the SRC went on to collect food packs‚ monies and textbook donations from some NMMU departments‚ students and many other external stakeholders.

“Through a sit-in‚ the SRC was able to fight for students who could not afford accommodation‚ tuition and food through the VC’s office and all those students now have book and food allowances and now have a full time accommodation at a residence‚” they proclaimed.

“Throughout the course of the year‚ the food drive and food bank has been active and the food has been delivered to many students in different campuses.”

At lunchtime on Friday‚ the SRC is going to deliver two cheques to the Campus Health Services and Rehab Book stores‚ the on-campus bookstore.

“The SRC is delivering a R100‚000 cheque to the Campus Health Clinic towards the food parcel bank and R50‚000 to Rehab for a Book Drive‚” the students said.

“The SRC would like to encourage each and every one to give back no matter how small it seems. We may not know the little actions we take‚ but we can understand that it goes a long away.”