One of the largest peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin marketplaces and digital wallet providers in the world - Paxful - has donated over 13,000 rands worth of bitcoin to GROW with Educare Centres. The donation forms part of Paxful’s #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative and is its first South African charitable contribution. Paxful also hopes to encourage its peers in the crypto-economy to invest in charitable causes.

As a non-profit organisation, GROW with Educare Centres empowers qualified, passionate women to own and run successful high-quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres, such as daycares and pre-schools, in low-income communities using the principles of social enterprise and micro franchising. With reading being an integral part of the Educare programme, the donation from Paxful will be used to purchase books for their various centres’ mini-libraries.

“We are thrilled to be able to make this donation to the GROW with Educare Centres project as we believe in the power of education. The aim with our #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative is to assist communities around the world who have been historically underserved and contribute to the provision of education for the youth across Africa,” says Ray Youssef, co-founder and CEO of Paxful.

The GROW with Educare Centres project was incubated by a partnership between The Clothing Bank and Grow Learning Company and currently has 31 ECD centres running across Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. 

“This donation opens new opportunities for our organisation to engage the crypto-community in charitable giving. An investment in Early Learning is one of the greatest investments you can make since one teacher influences a generation of learners. We hope that Paxful will inspire others to do the same,” says Helene Brand, Marketing and Fundraising Manager for GROW Educare Centres.

#BuiltWithBitcoin

Paxful launched #BuiltWithBitcoin in 2017 to encourage the cryptocurrency sector to contribute funds for humanitarian projects. To date the initiative has funded the construction of both a nursery school and primary school in Rwanda, as well as provided scholarships to Afghan refugees.

“The #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative is an example of how Bitcoin can contribute to social good and benefit people across Africa. We are excited to see every bit of positive change being made, and our ultimate goal is to build 100 schools across the developing countries, in addition to raising funds for water wells and community gardens to facilitate sustainable agriculture,” adds Youssef. The company plans to help finance the building of more schools this year.

With 2,5 million users globally and Africa being the fastest growing region, Paxful’s mission is to give people a simple, fair and secure platform for buying and selling bitcoin and aim to bring financial inclusion to the under-banked and unbanked through peer-to-peer finance.