BEAUTIFUL FUTURES NOW POSSIBLE

What determines your future? The truth is: everything. But for children in Port Elizabeth, one of the largest cities in South Africa, the dire conditions of their birthplace has played a predominant role in ensuring their future failure. This fact, however, has been changing, due to the incredible programs and efforts of the Ubuntu Education Fund.

Photo: Tim Hans

 

Since 1999, Ubuntu has worked in the townships of Port Elizabeth, home to some of the world’s most vulnerable children, to help them to build futures that defy the grim statistics foisted upon them by AIDS: 31% of the population live in child-headed households because 64% have lost one or both parents; 79% are unemployed; 31% are infected with HIV/AIDS; and 100% are in one way or another deeply affected by HIV/AIDS. In addition, abject poverty, addictions, unemployment, substandard education, violence, minimal sanitation, and other related evils plague this community.

 

In Ubuntu’s latest mini-documentary film, a pregnant black woman sits in a rundown shack, lamenting that she misses access to the bourgeois delicacy of sushi, while a pregnant white woman in an upscale yoga studio calmly discusses losing her first baby to AIDS, as she rubs her belly in hope that this new one will be healthy.  Why is this so riveting? Because it plays with our comfortable notions of socioeconomics, race, and destiny. And it challenges us to imagine something different. Something better.

 

 

Video: ubuntufund

 

Jacob Lief and Banks Gwaxula, Ubuntu’s founders, refused to believe that a child’s unfortunate birthplace should condemn her forever. Ubuntu's mission is simple, holistic, and radical: to help raise 2,000 township children by providing what all children deserve—at the very least, a reasonable chance. But of course, Ubuntu goes far beyond “reasonable” to offer a bright, inspiring life ahead.

Photo: Tim Hans

 

The poor tend to stay poor. That’s a fact. In the townships of South Africa, as in many places around the world, too many eager, intelligent children have no opportunity to go to school, to dream great dreams, and to work towards them. Lief and Gwaxula believe that these children’s dreams should become reality depending on what is inside them, not where they are from. And that is a beautiful notion. At Ubuntu, this passionate belief is at the core of every detail of every task, every day.

 

Photo: Tim Hans

 

The Ubuntu model isn’t lofty. It is practical. And it is genius. Ubuntu delivers comprehensive services to vulnerable children in ways that far exceed what other organizations do. Not just meals, not just tuition, not just uniforms, not just medicine… Ubuntu offers all this and everything else we would give our own children, from prenatal monitoring to math homework to desk lamps to college advice. Everything. Because this is what it takes to build a future that transcends your birthplace.

 

In 2012, Ubuntu provided thousands of home assessments, child protective services, psycho social services, HIV tests, and clinical services. And 100% of their HIV+ mothers gave birth to virus-free babies. Ubuntu has also maintained a 97% drug adherence rate amongst its community members. For these reason, and more, over 86% of Ubuntu’s children are on track to succeed after just 4 years in Ubuntu's programs.

Photo: Tim Hans

 

There are thousands of organizations you can support whose aim it is to reduce suffering and bring hope in our world. But few can boast the proof that their programs produce the kind of positive impact that Ubuntu Education Fund produces.

 

Beyond your regular, and much appreciate donations, you can help Ubuntu’s children determine their own futures by sharing their new documentary film. Every time someone views it, Ubuntu will receive $1, donated by Zodiak Media, towards its work in the townships of Port Elizabeth. This tiny amount can make an enormous difference: A $1 investment in an Ubuntu child returns $8.70 increased lifetime earnings for that child and a $2.20 net gain to society. Please share the link www.ubuntufund.org/umewe with your network. Email it around to anyone you know explaining 1 view = $1 and please post it on social media. The film is already getting publicized by forbes.com, Upworthy, and AOL Cause of the Day, so we know it's going to have an incredible impact. And we believe this can help to create a whole new beautiful future that can ripple way beyond the little corner of the world known as Port Elizabeth, and into the world at large.

Photo: Tim Hans