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How you can help
Make a regular gift
CIDA has the support of some extraordinary people, including Sir Richard Branson, Michael Dell and Oprah Winfrey. While their support lends confidence to other donors, it can also put off some people who are not able to give quite as much.
Today CIDA has a lot of support, but still not every student is sponsored, and there are so many more things we need your help to achieve. So whether you can give £5 a month or £500, every pound you give turns into many Rand and goes a very long way.
Why not set up a monthly standing order for an amount that you are comfortable with? Your money will be pooled with others like you and make a huge difference to a young African's future.
If you decide to do this, please don't forget to let us know by getting in touch so that we can thank you for your generosity!
Support the Students
One of the biggest differences you can make to someone's life is to fund his or her education:
* Give £7,500 over 3 years to fund a student's full scholarship, covering tuition, food, housing and transport so that together we can ensure that scholarships are available for when students apply: Scholarship Partner
* Give £2,500 a year, or any amount you like, towards covering CIDA's costs in the services it provides to support the students: Scholars' Fund.
* Get together as a company or with friends and fund scholarships for a group of students. You can even choose to name the scholarship
You can give the amounts mentioned above on an annual or monthly basis. To make a donation, please click here
Involve your Company
CIDA is an exciting, revolutionary concept that is well aligned with companies who want to help change lives in Africa by investing in education. CIDA Foundation has partnered with UK and European companies in creative ways, making a difference both to CIDA City Campus and to the company involved. While these partnerships all involve financial support of either scholarships or a specific project at CIDA, they also involve rich exchanges between the company and CIDA. Here are some examples:
Clifford Chance sent a partner from London over to Johannesburg to give a lecture as part of its Commercial Law course.
Clifford Chance also invited Dr Taddy Blecher and two CIDA students to speak at their offices as part of their Clifford Chance Conversations series.
IMI plc took two final year students into their Birmingham offices to complete two-month internships in their Marketing and Human Resources Departments.
IMI plc also sent 4 employees to CIDA for 2 weeks to teach an extracurricular course on innovation and creativity to CIDA's Life Skills programme students.
Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of the Virgin Group, flew two students over to Edinburgh to participate in activities around the G8 Summit in 2005. The students performed at a theatre with singers Natalie Imbruglia and Estelle.
St James's Place flew two students to London to attend their Annual Company Meeting, where the students spoke in front of 2,500 St James's Place employees at the Royal Albert Hall.
Send an email to interested@cidafoundationuk.org to find out how your company could get involved.
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Volunteer
CIDA Foundation UK has only two part-time members of staff and depends on help from volunteers to make sure everything runs smoothly. Here are some examples of when volunteers really are invaluable:
A few times a year, CIDA City Campus Senior Team members come from South Africa with students to represent CIDA at events organised by CIDA Foundation UK. We are extremely grateful for offers to put them up in people's homes, or offers to donate the cost of a hotel room.
When students come over, they often have a full schedule during the day, but benefit enormously when volunteers offer to take them out for the evening-- for a meal at home or around London, for a ride on the London Eye or any number of things one could show visitors in London. Students really appreciate meeting people who have volunteered to show them around for an evening.
From time to time CIDA Foundation UK hosts prestigious events at venues around London. Volunteers are always needed to man the doors and record who attended, to show people in to the venue and to help with the organisation of the event in general. Venues have included No 11 Downing Street and the House of Lords.
To offer to help and to discuss what you might do, email CIDA Foundation UK's Director of Fundraising & Development on interested@cidafoundationuk.org
We thank you so much for giving of your valuable time.
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