Malebo Habebt
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I am very grateful that I became successful in my application for financial assistance from the University Scholarships for South African Studies (USSAS).
I asked for assistance because I am unable to pay all the fees that are required for the present academic year, that is, 1992. I intend to pay the R1000 grant towards my fees. The grant helps me a lot in that the money I have to raise to complete my fees is now less R1000.
My name is Malebo E. Habedt and I am from Evaton township in the Vaal Triangle, south of the Transvaal. I was born and brought up in a struggling family. I lost my father when I was only five years old and my mother had to raise her children, five of us, on her own. She was unemployed at the time of the death of my father and she started selling “soft-goods” to make a living. As a howker?, my mother struggled with the education of my elder sisters until one of them eventually qualified as a teacher in 1986. My mother was too old to continue with her hawker trade when my sister graduated from college. She thereafter retired from her hawkership and everybody in our family now became my sister’s burden. My sister has been a breadwinner in the family since she started working in 1987 and she has been the one who assisted me with my education. My sister does not earn much but she sacrifices the little she gets to see to it that I get some education.
I started schooling in 1975 at Tsokodibane lower primary school. In 1979 I went to Phahamang higher primary school. Both these schools are very near my home and then school was not that expensive. My mother could afford to see me through my primary education. Problems started when I had to attend a secondary school. My mother wanted me to get at least a better secondary education to gear me for tertiary education. I had to attend at a school which was a bit far from home because it was then one of the best “Bantu” secondary schools. In 1983, therefore, I went to this school, Moqttaka secondary school. It had a very good record of maintaining the standard of good results. It had, as compared to other secondaries, better facilities which obviously enabled it to produce the best results. At this school problems I encountered included transportation problems because I had to travel to and from school everyday and I had to have money for lunch and this was costly and a bit too much for my mother who was supposed to educate and feed 4 other children. I struggled throughout my secondary education, but I managed to go on. I graduated from high school in 1986.
In 1987 I could not I could not further my studies because I had no money and my mother and my sister, who had just started working, could not afford to take me to a tertiary institution. I applied for bursaries but was unsuccessful in my attempts to make ends meet. In 1988 I tried to get myself a job so that I could save for my education but in almost all the places I wanted a job I was told that I was too young to be able to handle a job. After wasting another year, I decdied to apply to a university and asked for financial assistant from the local businessmen. I was fortunately successful in raising this money and I cam to the University of Durban-Westville in 1989. My sister is the person who has been assisting me and I also raise money by asking for contributions from local businessmen and buyers.
Because of the problems we have faced through out education, myself, and a group of other struggling students decided to open a Black Students Aid Programme in our township. Its major function is to raise money by organizing community projects for students and by canvassing financial support or aid for anybody who can help. At this stage the Black Students Aid (BSA) is still a small organization but we hope to increase its membership and try and help Black students who have the urge to learn but do not have the funds to realize their dreams.
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