Higherlife Foundation
925. Tsitsi Masiyiwa
926. Strive Masiyiwa
Tsitsi and Strive Masiyiwa, from London, founded ‘Higherlife Foundation’ in 1996, a non-profit organisation that has created one of the largest scholarship programmes in Africa.
The Foundation invests in Africa’s future by empowering vulnerable children through education and creating opportunities for highly talented young people. Through one of the largest scholarship programmes in Africa, the Foundation pays the school fees for 20,000 students annually in Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Burundi who they call their “history makers”. In 2013, Tsitsi and Strive established a $6.4 million scholarship fund that sends students to Morehouse College in the United States. They have developed an online platform, ‘Ruzivo Digital Learning’, which provides digital learning opportunities for thousands of students every month aligned to the national curriculum. They also co-founded ‘Muzinda Hub’ in 2014, the fastest growing tech hub in Sub-Saharan Africa which is tackling unemployment in Zimbabwe by training 1,000 young coders in digital skills and IT programming.
In a personal letter to Tsitsi and Strive, Prime Minister Theresa May said:
“By creating the ‘Higherlife Foundation’, you have demonstrated your shared commitment to improving educational opportunities for children across Africa. You should be enormously proud of the work you have done to support so many young people improve their life chances with high quality education and training.”
Tsitsi said:
“Strive and I are greatly honoured to receive the daily Points of Light award from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mrs. Theresa May. It is with great humility that we receive this award on behalf of our children, our group of companies and Higherlife Foundation. We are just the face of the incredible work done by the Higherlife Foundation team and all our partners, whom we consider the true heroes in spearheading this work.
Helping the orphans and the socially and economically distressed in our communities is anchored in our faith which reminds us that it is a blessing to give and that to whom much is given much is required. Through Higherlife Foundation we have managed to directly and indirectly impact over 250,000 Africans with plans to do much more. We envision an Africa in which young people find their vocation and are positioned to develop their communities for global impact and we believe this can be achieved in our lifetime.
Thank you, and may God bless you”.