SEDISA Trust

The SEDISA Trust is a Black-woman-owned South African education trust established to help black women access and complete tertiary education, funding undergraduate diplomas and degrees as well as postgraduate honours and master's study in any field, not just a narrow list of scarce-skills disciplines. It was founded to respond directly to the ongoing underrepresentation of black women among South Africa's university graduates, a gap that persists more than three decades after apartheid despite broader gains in access to schooling.

To qualify, applicants must be South African black women aged 16 to 35 who completed matric with Core Mathematics and at least a 65% overall pass, and awards cover tuition, accommodation and books, with applications accepted between January and September each year. Since 2012 the Trust reports having funded more than 30 students, with an ambition to grow that to around 40 new bursaries awarded annually going forward — a modest but steadily expanding programme rather than a large corporate scheme.

As an independent charitable trust rather than a commercial employer, SEDISA Trust does not impose a work-back or employment obligation on the women it funds. The bursary is structured purely as a grant toward closing an educational access gap, with no requirement to work for the Trust or any affiliated organisation afterward.