The Mandela School of Science & Technology opened its doors earlier this year in Mvezo, Nelson Mandela’s birthplace in the rural Eastern Cape.

Students spoke to Deutsche Welle about their hopes and dreams. They want to be doctors and scientists and engineers.

Some students have to walk an hour or more to get to school. It’s a place that until now had few opportunities for those hoping for higher education. Most people living in the town have no electricity or running water, and one in three are out of work, according to a Deutsche Welle video.

But more than 700 pupils from the area can now look forward to attending college after graduation thanks to the school, which was born out of a dream of Mandela. Many students had to learn English first and touched a computer for the first time at the school.

A quarter of South Africans are out of work, and half the unemployed are between 18 and 25 years old with no qualifications.