If you sponsor a child place the school will be more flexible in directing funds to where they are needed most at a specific moment: when parent(s) loose their job, fall ill or pass away. In many townships unemployment is rife. In some over 50% of the adults are jobless. Because there is a lot of casual labour and seasonal work the financial situation of a family can change from one day to the next. By sponsoring a child place you make it possible for children to stay at school even when parents are (temporarily) not able to pay the fees.

The schools select the children who need sponsoring, taking family circumstances, living conditions and family income into account.

Please get in touch. Let us know whether you would like to sponsor an individual child or a child place. More information about costs can be found on the Cost per child page.

Youngsters are selected by our partners. Applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Prove that she/he has worked as a volunteer.
• Prove that her/his family does not have the means to support her/him in full.
• Live in a township in South Africa.
• Have a high school diploma (or first year's results) that reconciles with the study choice.
• For the duration of the scholarship the student is obliged to work as a volunteer for at least two weeks per year.

We encourage students to apply for a scholarship elsewhere. A student who succeeds is entitled to a bonus of maximum R 1.000 or 10% of the amount that we save, whatever comes first.

We rarely transfer money to the students themselves. Instead we transfer money to the school or to one of our partners. Together with the student they sort out what needs to be paid for: books, accommodation, transport, subsistence, etc. Students are obliged to get in touch monthly.

We garantee that 100% of your donation will be spent on our target group. You may even want to decide on which project. BDO Accounting and Assurance in Rotterdam, check our books. CBF, the national accreditation body for Dutch charities, checks whether funds have been spent into agreement with our goals and plans. In our annual narrative and financial report we aim at accountability and transparency. We report back on our successes and on our failures as well as on our impact on the target group and the community at large. However, for donors who are not happy with our work, we have a money-back-guarantee.

We have tax facilities for donors who reside in The Netherlands (we are a registered ANBI) and for donors who reside in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or in the United States of America. Donations from residents in The Netherlands are tax deductable if:

• Donations amount to a minimum of 1% and a maximum of 10% of one's taxable income. E.g: your taxable income is € 40.000 and you donate € 650 to charity. € 650 - € 400 (1% of your taxable income) = € 250 which amount is tax deductable.
• Donations during at least five years that have been laid down in a notary document are fully tax deductable. E.g: your taxable income is € 40.000 and your annual donation to charity amounts to € 650. The whole amount of € 650 is tax deductable. For more information please read our flyer Fiscaalvoordelig geven (Pdf).
  

Donations from residents in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or in the United States of America are tax deductable if the donation has been transferred through a member of the Trans Giving Europe (TGE) network. For more information, please read our flyer Tax effective cros border donations

We choose our partners based on the following criteria:

• Empowerment: discovering and developing people's talents and power. We only fund local knowledge and expertise, no money is made available for foreign  'experts' or 'consultants'.
• Ownership: we only fund projects initiated by locals. 'Local people own local projects'. We expect input from the project owners: manpower (volunteers), venues, materials, discount from suppliers, funding from others, preferably in South Africa.
• There must be a real need for the project. No other organisation in the area is doing the same thing.
• Registered NGO, NPO or similar.
• Transparency (annual narrative and financial reports, constitution etc. available).
• The project must fit into one of our programmes: out-of-school care, child sponsorships, scholarships.

Please read our Grant Criteria (Pdf).For every partnership all parties enter into a written agreement. If you are new to us we would like to receive a copy of your constitution, latest annual narrative and financial report, auditor’s report and any other documents that may assist us in learning more about your organisation.
Please note that e-mails larger than 250 Kb will be blocked. Rather send documents on CD/DVD or upload your documents to http://www.sendspace.com and send us the links. For out-of-school and extra-curricular programmes please request an application form.

We like to work together with other organisations. Would you like to become a financial partner or an operational partner? Operational partners should check our Grant Criteria (Pdf). Would you like to learn more or do you think you have an interesting proposition? Please get in touch, we would like to discuss the possibilities and mutual benefits of a partnership.

Please check our Map and our pages Nursery schools and Partners.

We care deeply about the environment:

• Recycling. We promote recycling. At many holiday schools children pay their entrance fee with recyclables or recyclables are being used for art & craft workshops. At the Recycle Swop Shop children can earn their own school uniform or school equipment by collecting recyclables. More information can be found on the Child Sponsorship pages. Quite often educational outings to a nature reserve or to the beach are part of the programme as well as cleaning up the area or attending a workshop about the environment.
• Our Fair Wine List is also part of our commitment to sustainability.
  
• In order to save costs as well as the environment all our documents are made available in digital format.

Please assist us to improve our work and share your comments and complaints with us. Do get in touch and we will attend to it immediately.

© Stichting Projecten Zuid-Afrika - South Africa Foundation. For more information on copyright, please go to Disclaimer