June 29, 2009 – The call by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and its sister organisations to celebrate Mr Mandela’s birthday on July 18, as Mandela Day is gaining momentum with communities planning activities in different parts of the country.
Mandela Day is a global call to action for all people to follow in Mr Mandela’s footsteps by doing good in their own communities. This is in recognition of his decades of sacrifice for humanity.
As Mr Mandela has said: “It is time for new hands to lift the burdens” of the world. He has also said that he wished “South Africans never give up on the belief in goodness”. If each one of us becomes involved, together we could help create an international global movement for good.
Of course people are free to engage in any activity of their choice, but our approach to Mandela Day is a community-based one. We hope people will focus their work on the day around communities, with communities and to empower communities.
The Dialogue Programme of the Nelson Mandela Foundation will hold a community conversation in Khayelitsha, about xenophobia.
Staff members of the Nelson Mandela Foundation will give of their time to causes in which they are involved, and will carry out good work wherever they are.
The Nelson Mandela Institute for Rural Development and Education, with the University of Fort Hare, has planned to work with hundreds of volunteers to help restore Jabavu High School in Alice and to help clean up the town. Afterwards they will celebrate Mr Mandela’s life with poetry and song at a jamboree on campus.
The Mandela Rhodes Foundation in Cape Town will participate in a series of workshops to promote ubuntu in the workplace.
For more information email nmf@nelsonmandela.org or 082 868 9944.