Search begins for Bay’s senior citizen of year

It is fashionable to help others, the Bay’s first Senior Citizens of the Year winner, 79-year-old Isabella Mabengeza, said.

Mabengeza, a retired professional nurse, has called for nominations for the Senior Citizens of the Year (SCOTY) awards 2018.

The competition, which honours the elderly in Nelson Mandela Bay for acts of kindness has officially opened for nominations.

One of the competition organisers, Loudeaux Minnie, said the competition had evolved over the years.

“We use our finalist in the community to find other nominees, but [this year] we want to extend that to the general public.

“For example, Isabella, who won last year, was invited by Celeste [Van der Walt], who was the first SCOTY winner.

“We want to honour those 90-year-olds who are actively still teaching and mentoring in their communities.

“When we started, we had different categories and winners in those categories.

“[Now] there are three categories 70-79, 80-89, 90-99 and 100+, which deserves an award in itself because reaching 100 years is no small feat,” she said.

Having won in her category (70-79 years) last year, Mabengeza said she was still looking for someone to nominate. “I have been involved in community projects since 1964, teaching students how to debate, prepare speeches.

“I did all of this as a full-time nurse and a mother.

“In the 1980s, I became an activist for people living with HIV and I have been involved with that since then,” she said.

Nominations will close on August 17.

The official event to announce the results – in the form of a high tea - will be held on October 6.

Each nominee will have to submit an information pack which will be prejudged, that is followed by a selection process grouping the nominees according to their age groups.

Nominations can be sent to scotygoldenoldies@gmail.com