The South African government is still trying to address the backlog left by 40 years of education under the Apartheid regime, where white children received free, quality education and black children were limited to marginal “Bantu” schooling. Although South Africa’s government today promises free primary and secondary education, the majority of blacks in the country are left with substandard education in the townships and rural areas.

South Africa’s Institute of Justice and Reconciliation recently reported that 80 percent of schools offer education “of such poor quality that they constitute a very significant obstacle to social and economic development.” Although the South African government devoted 17.8 percent of its 2006 budget to the education sector, much more money and effort is needed to address the disparities in education. In addition to lack of funding and poor conditions in township schools, other factors including violence and rape in schools, HIV/AIDS prevalence, and stressed-out, low-paid teachers exacerbate the problem and increase dropout rates.

And that’s just the grammar and high schools. Access to college and higher education is virtually unheard of among township students. Despite the establishment of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme of South Africa, which seeks to impact the historically disadvantaged black population by providing financial assistance for higher education, its  reach is limited and college is not a foreseeable option for most black students in South Africa. University fees have doubled over the past five years, while the national student aid program has risen by only 30 percent. The result is that roughly half of the black students who enter colleges and universities fail to graduate, and the major reason is financial difficulties, according to a 2006 study printed in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

A college education is invaluable – it opens doors, opportunities, and life experiences – yet I took it for granted until I made friends with a South African student named Nomvuyo Miranda. Nomvuyo, called Vuvu for short, is a 21-year-old high school senior from Langa, the oldest township in Cape Town. She lives in a small shack made of tin roof tiles, which is just large enough to fit a mattress, stove and washbasin. She lives alone: her father is dead, and her mother is financially dependent on Vuvu.

Her high school lacks computer labs, basic supplies, and structured lesson plans. It also suffers from low expectations and little incentive for students to succeed. Contrary to mainstream expectations in America, life beyond high school graduation looks bleak and unpromising for many black South Africans like Vuvu. Not surprisingly, most don’t make it to their fourth year. The sentiment in Vuvu’s township is that drug trade is the fast track to wealth, and education is out of reach.

Yet Vuvu has beaten the odds, made it to graduation and has found innovative ways to support herself and her mother. She works as a maid in a hostel near my house, which is where I first met her. To earn extra money, Vuvu offers the hostel visitors tours of her township for 70 Rand (about $10), with dinner and a night in her shack included.

She first started giving tours of Langa in order to give people a better perspective of her home, emphasizing that it makes her sad to see people in tour buses leaning out the windows with cameras, leering at the township and failing to understand that it’s a community. Vuvu has earned notoriety among her neighbors and classmates for bringing so many foreigners into the all-black squatter camp infamous for crime and poverty – it’s a place that many South Africans and tourists avoid, yet she unabashedly shows it off to new-found friends.

Her business is successful partly because Vuvu makes friends easily. She began making unannounced visits to my house, inviting my roommates and  me to dinner at the hostel, out to local pubs to dance and meet her friends, and never refused an offer to share a bottle of wine. We introduced her to a cross-section of collegiate Americana: Facebook, barbeques, Justin Timberlake, happy hour, themed parties, iPods, the Macarena, and Super Bowl Sunday, just to name a few.

Inevitably, we began exchanging stories about our lives. After visiting her shack, asking questions about her life and learning she had no hopes beyond “matric,” or high school graduation, because college simply was never an option to her, it was hard for me to talk to her about my life in the U.S. I felt guilty discussing my post-grad plans to travel and choose a career, knowing that higher education, a well-paying job and a decent standard of living were inaccessible to her.

Until I met Vuvu, never once did I consider how different my vision for my future would be if I couldn’t get a college degree. I’d never considered how many doors have been opened to me thanks to the guidance of passionate teachers from whom I’ve been fortunate enough to have received an education.

Vuvu, more than most people I know, deserves an education and access to opportunities that so many of us have been handed simply by being born U.S. citizens. She can’t fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, apply for grants or win scholarships.
In South Africa, if you are born a resident of an impoverished township, statistics say you’ll likely retain that identity for a lifetime.

When I returned home, I felt guilty and helpless to change Vuvu’s opportunities. Her work ethic, optimism, and entrepreneurial spirit ensure she’d be a great success in whatever field she would choose, yet her potential is paralyzed because she can’t get the money to pay for her education.

Vuvu wants to be a professional tour guide, but the year-and-a-half program costs nearly $5,000. Realizing that I have a college degree, and certainly have access to people and organizations that would be willing to help, there is no good reason to sit back and do nothing.

I decided to help Vuvu by organizing a student organization to raise the money to cover her tuition, books and fees for a tourism vocational program at the College of Cape Town. Through Illinois’ Registered Student Organizations office, I set up an organization called “Vuvu’s College Fund” for this purpose and have been rounding up friends and peers to aid in the effort to pay for one student’s education.