The Telkom Foundation today announced the full sponsorship of the Future of the African Daughter (FOTAD) programme for 20 girls at Bashee High School and 40 girls at Mtshotshisa Junior School in the Eastern Cape village of Nywarha.
FOTAD is a girl-child development project that seeks to change the lives of ordinary girls, aged between 12 and 19 years old, from township and rural areas.
The project launched in the Alexandra township in Johannesburg in 2006. Additional FOTAD chapters have been launched in Diepsloot and Midvaal.
The launch of the Eastern Cape chapter marks the expansion of the project beyond the Gauteng province. This chapter is wholly sponsored at just over R760 000 by the Telkom Foundation which will cover the costs incurred by the execution of the FOTAD programme for the duration of the 2013 financial year.
The annual FOTAD programme includes the Maths and Science excellence programme; the leadership training, life skills training and ICT literacy. The Programme also offers weekly meetings during the school term and camps and a Youth Performing Arts programme during school holidays. The wider community also stands to benefit from engagements that FOTAD will host during the year.
Head of the Telkom Foundation, Ms Sarah Mthintso said, “The work of FOTAD speaks directly to one of our key focus areas, namely education. We specifically identify and support sustainable education initiatives that seek to improve the quality of teaching and learning in South Africa.”
Ms Mthintso noted FOTADs focus on developing maths, science and ICT literacy through the programme. “We bear witness to the increasingly prominent role that ICT, Maths and Science will play in South Africa’s economic well-being.”
FOTAD has been particularly successful in executing on this mandate having achieved the first distinctions in Maths and Science achieved by the 2012 group of Matriculants. This group also achieved a 90% university acceptance pass and two full scholarships were secured for girls to study engineering.
“It is an honour to become involved in the Future of the African Daughter initiative. It is our hope that it will grow ever stronger and touch more lives,” concluded Ms Mthintso.
Staff Writer
