Nelson Mandela’s words seem fitting here.

If you’ve had a moment to read the How It All Began page of our website, then you know the role that the building to the left played in Universal Promise coming to be.

Martha T. Cummings, Universal Promise Founder, wrote this about her first visit to Vusumzi Primary School: “I actually mistook the main academic center at one of the local primary schools for an abandoned, condemned building. Even in that moment, as little as I knew then, I knew that building had to go. It reflected a chokehold on progress and the insidiousness of the legally debunked apartheid regime.”

While the Nomathamsanqa talent always amazed us, the local children’s opportunities and infrastructure paled in comparison to those at exclusive urban schools just 45 minutes away. The new Universal Promise Academic Centre at Vusumzi Primary School changed all that. It now honors the students’ mastery of multiple languages, genuine curiosity, multipart harmony, Xhosa dance steps, and student expression through the new library, science lab, open-air gathering spot, dance & music studio, and arts studio. The centre showcases the broad range of intellectual and creative abilities in the school and beyond, and stimulates and hones other skills, as well. In the words of a gracious and grateful VPS educator, "The Universal Promise Academic Centre will support not one dozen or one hundred but one thousand children who stay in Nomathamsanqa, Langbos, and elsewhere in Addo. A few years ago, this was unthinkable for us at Vusumzi. But today we are proud. Universal Promise, we now hold our heads high."

OUT WITH THE OLD. IN WITH THE NEW.