For the first time, since the launch of the Globeleq Scholarship Fund (GSF) six years ago, youth located within the communities surrounding Boshof Solar Power have received bursaries.With the growing footprint of the GSF, fourteen students living within the 50km radius of Boshof Solar Power, put forward their applications to receive funding from the GSF Communities Scholarship, which is part of the umbrella programme.
“Our fund focuses on directly benefiting surrounding communities, which include Boshof,Hertzogville and Dealesville. This means that the scholarships can be truly localised and can bring about real development and socio-economic interventions for students who reside within our host communities,” explained Zuki Ndlela, Economic Development (ED) Specialist for Boshof Solar Power.
Three successful bursary recipients in the Boshof area have been announced for the 2021 academic year. These beneficiaries, will receive financial assistance over the next few years, up until they complete their studies, estimated 2023/2024.
Keorapetse Mokhuoane (24), from the Boshof community, is one of the three students to have been awarded a scholarship at the beginning of 2021. Currently in her first year, studying towards a National Diploma in IT, with Software Engineering, through Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, Keorapetse hopes to graduate late-2024.
She has her sights set on developing software applications (apps), in particular, one to assist people who have suffered strokes, something that she has experienced within her immediate family.“My goal is to qualify, gain extensive work experience and then open my own business one day, where I can be an internationally and locally recognised software developer,” said Keorapetse Mokhuoane.
Since 2016 the GSF recipients across the country have been 100% black youth and over 55% female for the last three years. The programme utilises a less conventional and holistic approach to funding, by typically not only focusing on academic achievement, but rather on financial need, location of the students and gender.
