adminthe country’s 10 provinces to use the fund by submitting names of deserving intelligent underprivileged university students. He reiterated that the trust was national and beneficiaries should thus be drawn from all corners of the country.
“This is a programme meant to benefit less privileged but intelligent students in the country,” said Dr Msipa, a former Midlands Governor.
“My worry is that the trust appears to be attracting only students from the Midlands. I haven’t seen a lot of applications from outside the Midlands. Other provinces don’t seem to know about the trust and I don’t want to believe that they do not have orphans or less privileged children who need help.”
Dr Msipa blamed the media for not disseminating information about the trust.
“Only the Chronicle has been giving the Trust prominence while other media houses, especially the privately owned ones, remained silent. In areas that are not covered by the Chronicle, the Trust is not known,” said Dr Msipa
He said the Trust targeted mainly intelligent orphans, less privileged children and those from broken families.
“Beneficiaries should be intelligent. For example, three of our students will be studying medicine at the University of Zimbabwe. The students first need to produce a letter of acceptance from any university in Zimbabwe before we can look at their applications.
“From the information I have, there are lots of students who are in arrears and come examination time, they are stopped from writing until they clear the outstanding amounts.
“We help such students, if they avail evidence and the necessary documents that prove their case,” he said.
Dr Msipa expressed gratitude to the corporate world for its continued support towards the fund. He, however, expressed concern that it was mainly companies based in the Midlands that were mostly supporting the CG Msipa ScholarshipTrust.
“I am very pleased with the support that we are receiving from the corporate world. My only concern is that most of these companies are from the Midlands yet this programme is national. It’s beginning to appear like it has become a Midlands programme yet when we set-up the Trust, we wanted it to be national and help build a better Zimbabwe that way,” said Dr Msipa.
The former Midlands Governor said poor publicity had seen the selecting committee struggling to come up with deserving candidates in areas like Matabeleland North. The Trust management team, he said, was in the process of engaging the leadership of all the regions to help reach out to all orphaned and less privileged students in the country.
“The contributions we receive from the corporate world are two-fold. Firstly, there are direct cash contributions to the Trust by companies. Under this arrangement, the Trust selects deserving candidates and pays their fees.
“The second arrangement is where companies come up with an offer to sponsor directly a number of students through the Trust.
“Steelmakers in Redcliff are already doing that. They are sponsoring three students. Hwange Colliery Company wants to sponsor two, a boy and a girl from Matabeleland region.
“We had only one application from that region and I have since appealed to Vice President John Nkomo to help me identify deserving students from that region,” said Dr Msipa.
The Trust is, however, flexible, as it occasionally assists orphaned and less privileged high school pupils. Dr Msipa said the trust also recently helped Nashville High School after it lost US$4 000 meant for November examinations this year.
“We were approached by the school headmistress and we met as a board and agreed to pay the money to Zimsec,” he said.
The CG Msipa Trust, the brainchild of Dr Cephas Msipa, was established in 2009 to assist underprivileged but intellectually talented students in the Midlands province before it was officially turned into a national trust about two months ago.
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda