A call to build on the successes of Mandela Day

 

On behalf of our Founder, Mr. Nelson Mandela, the Trustees and Staff of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, we would like to thank all members of the public for making Nelson Mandela International Day 2010 such a resounding success. Participation in Mandela Day activities was undertaken by people from all walks of life, ranging from the President Jacob Zuma in Mvezo, Morgan Freeman building a fence at an AIDS centre in Khayelitsha to women’s associations preparing meals for the needy or schoolchildren donating bread and preparing sandwiches for a local soup kitchen. From corporates whose staff planted vegetable gardens, provincial government staff spending time with child-headed households, to organisations educating children about the dangers of drugs and others who spent their 67 minutes tutoring disadvantaged communities in subjects such as mathematics.

 

Internationally, Mandela Day was marked by awareness creating events in centres such as New York, Madrid and London, as well as untold numbers of people everywhere giving 67 minutes of their time to make the world a better place for all.

 

It was particularly gratifying to see the huge number of individuals who took the initiative to contribute to communities and charities in a meaningful way. This is for us the essence of Mandela Day. The Nelson Mandela Foundation will collate all these efforts and publish a report within a few days.

 

We would like people to remember that Every Day should be a Mandela Day. Let the wonderful work that people have done with and within communities should now continue, and people and organisations should establish ongoing relationships with the various charities that they assisted.

 

For the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Mandela Day campaign continues. Not only will we continue to work with organisations that we have assisted during the campaign, but the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, to be delivered by Ariel Dorfman, on the 31st of July at the Linder Auditorium, will be another opportunity for us to highlight another strand of Madiba’s legacy: Memory and Justice.