This classroom is dedicated to Martha T. Cummings, the Founder of Universal Promise. Martha, the youngest of four children, was born in Southboro, Massachusetts, USA, where she went to primary and secondary school. Martha attended university at Bryn Mawr, where she majored in Anthropology, and later studied at Università Italiana per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy, and Dante Alighieri in Firenze, Italy. Upon her graduation from Bryn Mawr in 1980, Martha entered the field of education. For four decades, she served as an administrator, a teacher, a coach, and a tutor. Martha is also a published author, including two books and a handful of articles and speeches.
Martha’s life took a profound turn when she decided to travel to South Africa to celebrate her milestone 50th birthday. Her intention was to go on a safari in the Addo Elephant National Park and then tour the country, but then she met Moses, a waiter at a local safari game lodge. Martha asked Moses if he would escort her to his township. As a lifelong educator, she wanted to view the extent to which apartheid still infected schools and society. The next day, Moses and Martha were on our way to Nomathamsanqa, a township of 10,000 Xhosa residents, and that changed everything.
In Martha’s words, “I remember the day as if it were yesterday. In hindsight, the chasm between my anticipation and their reality was as great as the chasm between a raindrop and a hurricane. 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 structure reflected a chokehold on progress and the insidiousness of the legally debunked apartheid regime.”
Three weeks after her return to the United States, Martha could not stop thinking about the people she had met and the bold disparity between the haves and have-nots. She wanted to do something, but, at the same time, she knew she did not want to start something she could not sustain. To decide the next steps, Martha returned to South Africa to map out the way forward.
It was a conversation during that second visit that actually sealed the deal. She was the only guest at the same lodge she had visited before and had the chance to ask six young staff members, all 21 to 24 years old, what they wanted to be. One-by-one, they shared their dreams. When Martha asked them if they had noticed they all spoke in the past tense, they were quiet for a bit until one staff member, Luyanda, put his hand on her hand and said, “Oh, mama, those dreams are over for us now.” And the rest of the staff nodded.
That was it. Three months later, in February 2011, Martha (now known as Nobuntu by the South African locals) founded Universal Promise to provide individuals and institutions in underserved regions with the academic resources needed to ensure educational and career opportunities that will promote just, civil, and hopeful societies. In short, Universal Promise engages local school experts to formulate priorities and insist on mutual ownership to fuel systemic change in South African schools. No chronic handouts – just chronic empowerment, because education is the single greatest means by which to achieve and sustain equity for all.
Honoured by Universal Promise donors