By Staff Reporter
10 DECEMBER 2015
The City of Tshwane will be launching the much vaunted Informal Traders’ Bursary Fund at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Council (CSIR) on Monday 14 December 2015.
City Communications Strategic Director, Mr Selby Bokaba, said the birth of the Informal Traders Bursary Fund emanates from the Informal Traders’ Summit held in Region 3 in May 2015 which provided a platform for Informal Traders to interact with the Executive Mayor, Mr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, and the broader leadership of the City of Tshwane to express the challenges confronting them. 
During these interactions one of the areas that was identified as a challenge was the inability of the informal traders to invest in the education of their children to enable them to further their studies and increase their employability and ensure a positive contribution to the socio-economic fabric of the City.
In recognition of the plight of the informal traders, given their limited income which is mainly for subsistence, coupled with the high cost of education, the City conceptualized a bursary fund targeting the children of informal traders to enable them to further their studies and thus reduce the chances of intergenerational transmission of poverty to the children of informal traders who themselves may grow to become informal traders unless the cycle is intercepted through initiatives like these.
At the inception of a process to capitalise the Informal Traders’ Bursary Fund on August 20 2015, a one-hour show was hosted by Power FM promoting the fund and its intended objectives. Mayor Ramokgopa and the station’s listeners pledged a total of R162 000.00 to support the good cause. This was followed by the Mayor and his team of MMCs on August 24 2015 joining 10 female traders, trading on-site for the entire day in the streets of the Capital City. From the revenue generated 20% was invested into the Bursary Fund and the remaining 80% was given back to each trader.
Additional funds are expected to be raised during the formal launch of the Informal Traders’ Bursary Fund where companies and businesses will be sold tables and proceeds thereof will be diverted towards the fund and individuals will also be urged to make a contribution towards the fund.
Further, the City of Tshwane will be entering into a Memorandum of Agreement with the University of Pretoria(UP) in terms of which children of informal traders deemed eligible for a bursary will be enrolled at UP subject to such a child meeting the minimum entry requirements of the University.
