Our Impact

We may be a small charity but we have a big impact on the lives of those we empower through education.

Our support to individual scholars has an incredible impact – not just on their lives, but those of their families, their friends, and their future children. According to our impact surveys, most scholars are also actively helping others in their local communities as a result of being helped by Rafiki Thabo. Once they have secured employment or started a business, they also contribute economically to the local community and the wider economy.

Hot off the press: our 2024 impact survey report from our scholars programme is now available!

Read about the impact we are having on scholars' lives

There is a great deal of evidence from international organisations of the links between the grassroots micro level support to education we provide and macro level outcomes. For example:

Each extra year of schooling increases an individual’s earnings by up to 10% and raises average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 0.37% (GEM Report, 2011)

Education helps people understand democracy, promotes the tolerance and trust that underpin it, and motivates people to participate in politics. Across 18 sub-Saharan African countries, those of voting age with primary education are 1.5 times more likely to express support for democracy than those with no education, and the level doubles among those who have completed secondary education (UNESCO/EFA, 2014)

The impacts of educating girls are even stronger: girls with secondary education are likely to marry 4 years later, less likely to die in childbirth, likely to have an average of 2.2 fewer children, more likely to have healthier children and more likely to send their children to school (UNICEF, 2014).

Read our detailed impact report

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