Countdown begins to Mandela Day
COMMUNITY organisations, government departments and South Africans in general are gearing up to dedicate their 67 minutes in honour of Nelson Mandela’s legacy as the world marks Nelson Mandela International Day tomorrow.
Yesterday, the Presidency announced that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa would officially hand over the Ramadimetja Sophia Mogotlane Early Childhood Development Centre to the Mookgophong community in Limpopo tomorrow.
“The facility will afford children an opportunity to develop through play and other creative activities, and improve their health and well-being through access to adequate nutrition and health services,” said a Presidency statement.
In Cape Town, senior citizens will be treated to a free concert at the International Convention Centre.
The event, organised by Cosatu, will see pensioners from across the city flocking to attend.
“Mandela would have wanted older black community members who built Cape Town to also have an opportunity to enjoy it.
“So on Mandela Day, Cosatu will be having a free concert for pensioners in the Convention Centre,” said a Cosatu statement.
The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation staff and members of its Youth@ Work programme will honour Madiba by serving soup to the needy at the Grand Parade.
“Nelson Mandela Day focuses our attention on each other, and our responsibilities to live Madiba’s legacy forever through the work we all do,” said Tutu.
The foundation’s chief executiver, Mbulelo Bikini, said: “Mandela Day is an opportunity to express the spirit of African compassion, ubuntu, which welcomes foreigners into our homes because they are fellow human beings, not because they are known to us.”
The Community Chest said it would be building a book mountain from donated books outside its offices in Bree Street, to champion Madiba’s call for education.
It has invited the public and corporates and their staff to donate books in batches of 67.
All collected books will be donated to schools, child and youth-care centres around Cape Town.
It’s an opportunity to express the spirit of ubuntu