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On Sunday 18th September 2011, Emma will cycle from Brighton to Hastings for the Southern African Scholarship Fund.

The Southern African Scholarship Fund was set up by the University of Brighton Students’ Union in 1987/88 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, a political activist and former leader of the Southern African Students Association who died in police custody under the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Although, the first multi-racial elections in 1994 brought an end to apartheid and ushered in majority rule under an African National Congress (ANC)-led government, South Africa still struggles to address apartheid-era imbalances in decent housing, education, and health care. The Southern African Scholarship Fund aims to help the development of South Africa and its neighbouring countries by funding Southern African Scholars on courses which directly benefit the wider community when they return home. To date, the fund has supported trainee teachers, engineers, doctors and nurses. Your sponsorship will help provide a scholarship to a student from South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique or Angola.

The scholarship has recently been supporting medical students and nurses from Zambia. Like most of Southern Africa, Zambia suffered extensive destruction during the apartheid South Africa-backed regional destabilization war of the 1970s and 1980s. Also in common with most of the Southern region, Zambia has HIV/AIDS prevalence rates that are among the highest in the world, standing at about 14.3% to 15.2%. About 80% of Zambians depend on farming, although only 7 percent of the land is arable. Most live below the "extreme poverty line" of less than $1 a day. (http://www.africare.org/our-work/where-we-work/zambia/index.php)

Two Zambian nurse educators attended a three month critical care module at the university in 2009 and subsequently developed an Intensive Care course which they are now teaching at the Lusaka Nursing School to nurses from all over Zambia. This small but effective initiative will ensure that where there was only one intensive care nurse in a country of nearly 12 million people, in a couple of years there will be nurses all over Zambia specialising in this important area of nursing. So you can see how the money raised ensures real positive changes to those who need it most.

To hear from our 2011 medical scholars from Zambia, Thandiwe Tembo and Webby Phiri, watch the video on this page from 2 minutes 19 seconds onwards: http://www.brighton.ac.uk/alumni/giving-to-brighton/current-fundraising-activities/fiver-for-the-future/ 

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Thank you very much.

Emma