The Nigerian e-learning startup ScholarX has launched an education crowdfunding platform called Village.
The platform allows African secondary school and university students to create fundraising campaigns for backing by sponsors.
The ScholarX app was launched back in July of 2016. Users of the app can select choose parameters and look through lists of potential scholarships that match their needs and requirements.
The scholarships are not only available for undergrad students, but also those working towards their Masters and PhD.
One of the huge problems that the startup addresses with their platform are the students who are in the lower economic classes who are unable to properly afford their education and thus cannot continue.
Providing them with lists of scholarships help guide these troubled students onto a successful path again.
Bola Lawal, the co-founder of ScholarX, said, “When you look at issues with girls not being able to go to school due to lack of funds and the social ills they get exposed to make ends meet, or huge youth unemployment figures which directly correlates with increased crime rates, you begin to see the trend. Access to education is a huge problem.”
The number of youth in Africa is rising. Although, a valiant effort is being made by many startups to improve the African economy, the fact that the number of impoverished citizens is still very high is still a major problem.
Many African children who should be getting education are unable to as they lack the money to pay for their educations. The startup hopes to help to solve this problem while making others aware that this problem exists.