Our Work

The Zoe Education Trust aims to give children living in poverty the chance of a brighter future through education.

We believe education is central to empowering youngsters to reach their potential and make dreams a reality. Education encompasses more than just the school day and so we make sure our children are supported at home, with homework and with extracurricular activities and trips. The Trust values each child as a unique and special individual and we work tirelessly to make sure that every penny brought into the trust improves the lives of our children.

The Zoe Trust enables donors, singly or in small groups, to support the education of individual youngsters. As of January 2015, we have 27 children within the Zoe Trust family. We keep our sponsors updated regularly on their children’s progress through emails, images and letters. Our sponsors have the opportunity to create a personal link with their children in order to encourage them, monitor their progress, mentor them and form long-term relationships.

Alongside our individual sponsorship program we have a number of funds which help us to support the education of our children. These include the homework, teacher and enrichment fund. We invite sponsors who are not looking to form a relationship with a youngster to support the trust through these avenues. We are also extremely grateful for any one-off donations into these funds.

The Zoe Trust works in Ingwavuma, a small rural village, and CapeTown. We have three trusted and experienced volunteers on the ground who help us select the most suitable youngsters to be supported, channel the funds directly to the relevant funds, and act as mentors to our youngsters.

Why the Zoe Trust?

The Zoe trust was set up in 2010 in memory of Zoë Sarojini Schwarz – a loved and loving young woman who suffered from bipolar depression and took her own life in August 2000.  Zoë’s family and close friends created the trust to celebrate her love of life and generosity of spirit. Her mother talks about this journey in an interview in April 2015.