About the fund

WHO WE ARE

Thuto Ikusasa NPC is an education fund, founded and run exclusively by the alumni of the Inhlakanipho Education Development Trust (IEDT). This page outlines the origins of the fund, our purpose and mission, our mandate in terms of how the fund is managed, criteria for student selection and how donor contributions are utilized in the execution of our goals.

OUR MISSION AND PURPOSE

The overarching goal of the Thuto Ikusasa fund is to identify outstanding and capable students that fit the criteria of exhibiting either academic brilliance, exceptional leadership, artistic or technical qualities that can be nurtured and reinforced through access to quality education at South Africa’s finest schooling institutions. In conjunction with this, by providing professional and personal mentorship, we believe that we can not only create consummate professionals who will be champions in their various fields, but also conscious leaders with the capacity to be agents of change.

WHERE WE COME FROM

The Inhlakanipho Education Development Trust (IEDT) was formed in 2000, with the aim to provide education by providing schooling and mentorship to promising young South Africans from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Beneficiaries are mainly selected from the high school level. To qualify, a pupil must exhibit either academic brilliance, exceptional leadership, artistic or technical qualities, none of which need not necessarily conform to conventional definition. 

Potential bursars are selected through exhaustive interview processes held in conjunction with host and partner schools into which the learners may be placed. Considered to be top South African schools, they include schools like Hilton, Crawford College, St Johns, King Edward (KES), Bishops, Herschel, St Joseph’s Marist, Rodean, Lebone II and Parktown Girls to name a few.

Differentiating the IEDT from simply being an educational trust is its insistence on mentorship for its learners, provided through themed annual camps and frequent informal interactions between learners and their mentors. These are designed to enhance their leadership and life skills and prepare them for the ‘world of work’.

HOW THUTO IKUSASA CAME TO BE

The IEDT has existed for almost two decades and the alumni who have benefited from the fund have gone on to pursue careers in various industries such as in the arts, commerce, law and science to name a few. This wealth of talent has acknowledged that the assistance of the IEDT fund was a key component of their current success.

Thus, the IEDT alumni decided to establish The Thuto Ikusasa Fund in a bid to replicate the model of the IEDT in the form of a fully independent, alumni organized and managed educational fund. Part of the considerations of direct alumni involvement was in order to ensure a more-hands on approach with regards to alumni being responsible for the running of the fund, selection criteria as well as direct mentorship for students from members of a community who share similar experiences.

The alumni play an active role in electing students that they will be funding, through being a part of the interview process, the procurement of additional and supplementary funding to support students, as well as the governance and management of the administrative aspects of the fund. All of this work is done willingly, and freely, out of a shared understanding of the immense value of working to grant deserving students access to education that can instil deep value in their lives, and drive them to success as professionals, as well as leaders.