About Christel House

Christel House is a non-profit school with a single mission: to break the cycle of poverty. Poverty touches every aspect of a child’s life, determines their future and almost always leaves them trapped in a spiral of unemployment and continued poverty.

Christel House offers no-fee scholarships to students from some of the poorest neighbourhoods. These students are supported for 18 years with a fully serviced, holistic education that instils the development of character into everything they do.

Christel House operates eight schools around the world with locations including India, Mexico and America with a new centre to be opened in Jamaica in 2019. The centre in Cape Town, which caters for Grade R - Grade 12, was established in 2002 and is the only centre in Africa.

As part of their holistic 18-year offering, Christel House instils strong character development ethics, complemented by:

• Professional health care
• Nutritious meals
• Psychosocial counselling
• Family assistance
• College and careers planning and support (up until five years after graduating)  

Through this structured approach they have achieved a spectacular 100% matric pass rate for the last nine consecutive years (since their first Grade 12 class graduated in 2009).

Christel House is changing lives: Nontando Bonga’s story

Nontando’s one-room shack in Cape Town’s Langa township was so tiny that her father and brother had to sleep outside. “I started at Christel House when I was in Grade 3. I was a below average student, could not speak English and was very shy. In 2009, I graduated as the first ever valedictorian of our school. Christel House changed my life”. Today, Nontando is a successful chemical engineer at Chevron Oil, married and has started her own family.

Christel De Haan, who is RCI^®'s founder, started the first Christel House in 1998, in Mexico. RCI^® proudly supports Christel House.

As a valued member/friend of RCI^® we ask that you help us in our mission to raise funds for Christel House. Every contribution is welcome and appreciated.