The Umthombo Youth Development Foundation, trains and supports rural youth to become qualified health care professionals in order to address the human resource shortages in rural hospitals thereby improving health care to rural communities. On completion of their training, these young health care professionals work at one of the 8 hospitals in the Umkhanyakude district in return for the opportunity they had to study a health science qualification.

Umthombo provides comprehensive mentoring and financial support to rural students during their studies and assists them to integrate into the hospital working environment and become professional health care workers on graduation.

We offer a long term solution to the challenge of recruiting and retaining quality health care professionals in South Africa's rural areas. Research has shown that health professionals are more likely to choose to work in a rural hospital if that is where they come from or if they are exposed to the realities of rural health care delivery whilst doing their university training.

Over the past 10 years, 72 graduates have been produced in 16 different health science disciplines. This year we are supporting 110 rural youth to become future healthcare workers. Download a copy of our latest Annual Report. Visit our Facebook page