Good Morning Angels New Year’s Edition: Makaylin’s medicine degree becomes a reality

BACKGROUND:  To achieve this goal, Makaylin has been a hardworking, focused student - achieving academic top 10 placement in every grade in school. Her parents have supported and motivated her all through school.

Being a mixed race Afrikaans/Indian girl in an Afrikaans school, life had its challenges and Makaylin struggled to fit in. But she decided to never allow herself to be stereotyped and opted to rather stand out.

She decided at the age of nine that she wants to be a doctor and she applied all over to study medicine. She has been accepted to study medicine at Wits and short-listed at Tuks, but she has no idea how she will fund her studies.

Financially, Makaylin falls in the so-called “missing middle”: her parents earn too much for her to qualify for a NSFAS bursary and too little for them to afford her considerable tuition fees. As a last resort, Makaylin’s family applied to Good Morning Angels New Year’s Edition for a SABAT Batteries bursary... 

REQUEST FOR: Makaylin Pillay 

ANGEL: Corné Strydom representing Sabat Batteries, our Good Morning Angels New Year’s Edition Bursary Sponsors  

SPONSORING: From their Bursary Fund, Sabat Batteries will sponsor Makaylin's first year tuition fees to study Medicine (MHCHB) at the University of Witwatersrand!

ORIGINAL REQUEST:

Growing up as a mixed race girl Makaylin never really knew where she had to fit in. From a young age she never allowed herself to be stereotyped.  She decided to stand out and not to allow her circumstances to overcome her success. In both primary and secondary school she attended Afrikaans dominated school. She faced many challenges throughout her life. Since she was nine years old, she knew that she wanted to become a doctor and always had an interest and passion for medicine and to study MBCHB. Throughout her life she was taught by us to never give up.  She achieved above average marks throughout her school career and always earned her place on the top ten academic achievers of her grade. Her academic average has been above 80% since primary school. Makaylin’s ambition however did not end there. When secondary school was around the corner, she knew she had to work even harder to achieve her ultimate dream. She is currently facing her biggest challenge as she is standing at crossroads. Not coming from a wealthy or influential family makes it difficult to afford University fees.  We as parents encouraged her to pursue her dreams and passion. We know that attending University is her biggest dream and will mean placing immense pressure on us as parents financially, however we try to assist her in doing research about bursaries and financial aid.  She did apply at NSFAS and Moshal and unfortunately did not qualify as our salaries are just above the qualifying mark.

At this stage, we are too rich to qualify for financial aid or bursaries and are too poor to afford University studies for our child.

She is still awaiting her matric results for 2020.

It would be an honour if you could assist us and grant her the opportunity to realise her dream.

She was provisionally accepted at Wits University for Medicine (MHCHB), at Tuks shortlisted for Medicine (MHCHB) and we still awaiting feedback from Sefako.

Please find attached documentation as requested.

Your help will be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Maryke

Image credit: Supplied