Education sponsorship
These programmes are targeted at improving the standard of living in communities in which the DBSA operates:
- Contact with the family that received a modern, fully furnished home in Port St Johns as a gesture of goodwill from the DBSA tells a good story of improving living standards. The Port St Johns family of 10 received a fully furnished modern home, with environmentally appropriate toilet facilities and a continuous water supply from water harvesting facilities. In addition, the Bank is sponsoring the education of a child from the family at St Johns High School from 2018 to 2022.
- The family was not keen to have the DBSA sponsored child go to a “far away school”. The good news is that the DBSA caters for all the needs of the sponsored child. A stipend is now paid to the mother of the child on a monthly basis to ensure that the mother visits the child and attends to the daily needs of the child thus building a strong mother daughter bond.
- Relief for the family enables them to pool resources from child grants received by various members of the family and use the funds for the education of one of the sons in the family at a ‘far away college’ from home.
- This shows that the family is now confident to send a child to a school outside of their immediate environment, has found value in better educational facilities and members are working together as family.The DBSA continues to take care of all the child’s educational needs. The 2019 academic year has been fully funded, for tuition, boarding facilities and personal needs. This includes a cell phone and data providing access to educational content. The sponsorship also extends to supplementary tuition and non academic opportunities such as school camps.