South Africa has millions of children orphaned by AIDS, apartheid, and poverty. Traditional charities help them survive but leave them dependent as well as leaving them outside society and the economy. In this audio interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, Kim Feinberg, founder of the Tomorrow Trust, describes her innovative approach to helping those children reintegrate into society by educating them.

Unlike many complicated NGOs, the Tomorrow Trust is designed to be simple to operate and replicable anywhere in the world. The three-tiered approach consists of an oral history awareness campaign through Kim's books, high quality private schooling during holiday periods, and affiliation with secondary education and training programs. The schooling period includes, not just education, but good food, comfortable housing, and extracurricular classes in budgeting, critical thinking, and team building.

The program is funded by corporations interested in the quality of its graduates and through a payback policy for graduates. Students who have completed the program have scored better on skills and competency tests than the general population, so corporations see the program as improving the overall workforce. To fight the culture of dependence that these children come from, they are required to pay 10% of their salary to the trust for two years after graduation. This doesn't come close to what gets spent on each child but it commits the graduates to help more children receive the same benefit that they did.