The Community and Individual Development Association has educated over 14,250 unemployed young people ‘out of poverty’ through university and other post-school training: now working in jobs with combined lifetime earnings of about $1.7 billion. 

The organisation has also reached over 500,000 school children with one-week life-skills training.

Help us to create the first self-funding university in the world!

The Community and Individual Development Association established in 1979, pioneered the movement to offer free University education in South Africa. Over the past 15 years we created 6 free-access institutions to offer education to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it. The core focus of this fundraiser is scaling up our newest institution, the Maharishi Institute, which offers students an internationally accredited business degree while providing them with practical work experience in our social enterprise Invincible Outsourcing. Students gain experience working in a call centre environment making calls, data capture, data mining and more.

• Your donation today will help give higher education to more students. $250 will provide a student with full tuition and books for one month, including meals and counseling
• $50 will cover a student’s transport costs to university each day for a month
• $20 will provide meals for a month

Your ‘return on social investment’ is between 5,000 to 10,000% - money that is going back into the hands of poor families. Over 70,000 family members are now supported through our graduates.

The Community and Individual Development Association has won multiple awards for innovation in education in South Africa and internationally, such as the Maharishi Institute winning the Global Education ‘Seedlings of Success’ award, as the most innovative education institution in the whole world under age five in 2010. CEO of the Maharishi Institute, Dr Taddy Blecher has also been recognised by international bodies, such as the World Economic Forum. Through the use of consciousness-based education, which focuses on developing the whole person, the institute is producing young people who can now believe in themselves and the potential that they have to actively contribute to the economy.

How you can help?

We need your help to change the fortunes of many more young people in South Africa, and to create the world's first self-funding University. Donate today.

In the words of the great Nelson Mandela

“Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world”.