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Take action, inspire change, and make every day a Mandela Day

Take action, inspire change, and make every day a Mandela Day – is more important than ever before.

In a time where the world has lost so much the underpinning message of Mandela Day speaks true. Through Each1 Feed1  we have travelled most of South Africa and have met people who have built hope in their communities and make a difference despite their hardships. Amongst the midst of the troubles, we have seen income lose and the despair of losing family members. South Africans and many people around the world have chosen to be a solution and inspire change.

The inspiring story is in Hhoyi, a small village in Mpumalanga, where a community came together and tried to build a house for an old lady.

They gave hope of compassion to a lady abandoned by her family and left to survive in a small shack with little to no assistance. Her sad story took a turn for the better when the community members saw her living conditions and decided to build her a house. The community spirit and passion were stopped in their tracks by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the four walls stayed with no roof, no doors or windows. Gogo Khoza continued to remain in her shack.

The traditional leadership of Hhoyi village with local businesses got involved in finding a solution for her. We are reaching out to all who can help donate building material and labour to give dignity to someone who needs help. Equally inspired by the Nelson Mandela Foundation institutional values of service, and compassion, the Mandela Day Team has taken up the task to coordinate the completion of this house with local assistance.

The living conditions of the old lady are not unique. We met two young boys living on their own in a one-room house on our next home visit. Their parents passed away, and they were left to fend for themselves. The question of balancing school, being a child and being an adult was not one with which any of us were prepared to contend. This is another tragic reality that faces many, but we have met this family.

Could we have just left knowing that the Each1Feed1 Food Pack was adequate relief but not enough? Could we just think there is so many to help? Why these beneficiaries? 

SERVICE and COMPASSION cannot answer these questions, but a collective compassionate community action can make a difference. We have learnt that taking action is not easy, and it takes time, but SERVICE and COMPASSION compels you to start something that makes a difference. The call to action for change needs one to find the best way to be part of the solution while giving dignity and hope.

These two stories are familiar to the over a thousand families of Hhoyi, KwaZulu-Natal and the Mayfield township that received Each1 Feed1 food packs. Taking action and making a difference every day to inspire impactful change is the most human thing we can all do. Mandela Day hopes to make this call everywhere we go and to everyone who listens.

The traditional leadership of Hhoyi village with local businesses got involved to find a solution for her. Reaching out to all who can help to donate building material and labour to give dignity to someone who need help. Equally inspire by the Nelson Mandela Foundation institutional values of SERVICE and Compassion Mandela Day Team have taken up the task to coordinate the completion of this house with local assistance.

The living conditions of the old lady is not unique, on our next home visit we met two young boys living on their own in a one room house. Their parents passed away and were left fend for themselves. The question of balancing school, being a child and being an adult was not one any of us were prepared to contend with. Imagine any 17 and 8 years old boys you know living by themselves and have no adult supervision. This is another tragic reality that faces many, but we have met this family. Could we have just left knowing that the Each1Feed1 Food Pack was good relief but not enough? Could we just think there is so many to help, why these ones? SERVICE and COMPASSION cannot answer these questions but a collective compassionate community action can do something to make a difference.

We have learnt that taking action is not easy and it takes time but SERVICE and COMPASSION compels you to start something that makes a difference. The call to act for change needs one to find the best way to be part of the solution while giving dignity and hope. These two stories are common to the over 1 000 families of Hhoyi, KwaZulu-Natal and the Mayfield township that received Each1 Feed1 Food packs and we met.

Taking action and making a difference every day to inspire impactful change every day is the most human thing we can all do. Mandela Day hopes to make this call everywhere we go and to everyone who listens.

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None of us is Nelson Mandela, but we can make every day Mandela Day

Mandela Day - Whatever the motivation, it’s a great reminder every year that we are part of something bigger than just our own lives. It is also an opportunity to think about what Madiba’s life meant for us, for the country and for the world.

Nelson Mandela’s legacy was something he showed that we all have within ourselves: his depth, his courage and his belief in humanity — but in the end, it’s up to us to decide whether to use it.

The eighteenth of July is an opportunity every year for all of us to do our 67 minutes of service to the community in honour of Nelson Mandela. This year’s Mandela Day marked what would have been the statesman’s 105th birthday — and with it the obligatory flurry of selfies on social media of people making food for the hungry, painting dilapidated classrooms, cleaning up the neighbourhood and generally doing good.

Whatever the motivation, it’s a great reminder every year that we are part of something bigger than just our own lives. It is also an opportunity to think about what Madiba’s life meant for us, for the country and for the world.

The fact is, time is marching on. Mandela was in jail for 27 years, released 33 years ago, was president for five, retired in various phases for 14 and will have been gone for 10 come December this year.

Fewer and fewer people remember him in their lifetimes and all they are left with is the myth. For the newer generation, that’s an opportunity to revise the older generation’s version, contesting his legacy and what he did.

It’s a difficult, but fascinating process that speaks to our need for heroes and our despair when they don’t measure up to our expectations — even if it is decades later, thanks to the endless evolution and revision of what we consider to be history.

It’s something that struck me very keenly this year. The Mandela Day commemoration that I had the privilege of taking part in was very different to previous ones. This one involved 40 young people, Born Frees who never lived under the repression of apartheid, but all of whom came from vulnerable backgrounds, escaping from violence, gangsterism, sexual exploitation and drugs.

Most were hard-pressed to define Mandela in anything but the most abstract way, so we began a process of trying to define what Madiba and, more importantly, what his example could teach us so that we could make commemorating his birthday that much more significant for all of us.

We had a range of speakers: a former convict and gang leader turned community activist and graduate, a colleague who had recently completed her journey to become a traditional healer, and another who had survived an abusive relationship. Each one shared stories from their own experiences and how Mandela’s life and example had intersected with their lives and inspired them

A sense of purpose

What emerged in all of them was Mandela’s humanity. His ability to see beyond the superficial veneer of class, creed, colour and gender and recognise the individual behind this.

The speakers had been inspired by his sense of purpose that could override all other concerns in its pursuit, yet allow and even encourage compromise if it was integral to the mission.

That same ability could permit incredible toughness, ruthlessness even, in the adherence to standards of loyalty, courtesy and kindness, create space for unbelievable forgiveness and tolerance of our own faults and those of others, but also set limits.

Mandela had the ability to see people, like the Maoris rubbing noses in greeting, literally seeing one another, or the Zulu greeting of affirming our presence. He was implacably convinced that we were all capable of better, of doing the right thing.

Sometimes it is difficult for us to do the same because there is so much disconfirming evidence that it drowns out all the confirming evidence that is actually there.

I was reminded of a time when as a young man I was very despondent and how my own epiphany had come in a square in Manchester. I looked up from my self-absorption and saw an old woman struggling to cross the road, when a stranger stepped up to help her and carry her load. As I looked around, I started seeing other random acts of kindness, of humanity, the endless flow of small, good actions and collaboration, which in turn recalibrated my own humanity and freed me from the shackles of depression.

The greatest irony of all was that no one in our Mandela Day commemoration was actually talking about Mandela, but rather themselves within the framework of his example. The exception was Andy Innes, the late Johnny Clegg’s band leader, who told the story of Madiba coming on stage unrehearsed behind the legendary singer in France in 1999 when Clegg was singing   Asimbonanga , a song he had written about Madiba and other Struggle icons.

At the end of our session together we were all filled with a sense of care, a profound love for one another, without sentimentalism. We had a real sense of ubuntu; of our existence being defined by our belonging to a greater humanity despite our many imperfections; and, perhaps most importantly, the aspiration to do better, whether at school or in relationships, in life in general.

This wasn’t a “what would Mandela do?” moment, but something more profound; a sense that life is tough, but we can get to the other side. We can triumph if we share the sense of purpose that Mandela had and the same activism for that goal — whatever it might be.

Nelson Mandela’s legacy, we surmised, was something he showed that we all have within ourselves: his depth, his courage and his belief in humanity — but in the end, it’s up to us to decide whether to use it or not. We are all human, all one race, despite our differences.

We distilled five lessons from the session we held:

• Not everyone walks the same path in life; regardless of our start in life, we can rise to the top of the ladder through resilience and persistence.
• The journey may be long, but it will be worth it and every step gets us closer.
• A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
• The true greatness of life is not in failure, but in finding the strength to rise every time we stumble.
• One person can make a world of difference — imagine what we can do together.

Our problem is that we think we have to be like Mandela by being him. We can’t — there was only one Nelson Mandela forged by a unique set of circumstances over decades.

We need to look beyond him as a person to see what he signified. We need to look at what he was pointing to, rather than fixating on his finger. He never actively sought power as an end in itself but as a means to an end to bring about change. He knew the dangers of using power and how it could humble and shatter those who use it for the wrong reasons.

Knowing the risks, he forged ahead in the strength of this knowledge, using it not to create cocoons of privilege, but to break it down and uplift others.

Madiba was exceptional because he actively sought to de-exceptionalise himself. The truly great become nothing at the same time, because the truly great know themselves so well, they are themselves, authentically so with all their flaws. That’s what makes them so very strong and their purpose so pure.

When you look at Mandela like this, you realise that we all have a little bit of Mandela in us. And when we channel that, we realise that every day is Mandela Day, not just 67 minutes on 18 July.

And that’s an epiphany in itself.

- Dean Jon Foster-Pedley, Henley Africa

First published in The Daily Maverick , 31st July 2023

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Make every day a Mandela Day

Every year on 18 july, which is former president nelson mandela’s birthday, south africa and the rest of the world join hands to celebrate international mandela day..

This is in recognition of the 67 years of his life that he spent serving his community, country and the world in the struggle for peace and equality.

Due to the success of Mandela Day, the celebration of this great leader was extended to the entire month of July, which has become known as Mandela Month.

The Mandela Month message for 2013, like previous years, is centred on change with the call to Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day.

It urges people everywhere to play a role in making the world a better place, one step at a time, just like Madiba did.

67 minutes of service

How will you spend your 67 minutes of service this Mandela Day? There are many ways to get involved. Here are just a few suggestions:

• Create food parcels and give them to people in need, such as street children.
• Volunteer to do shopping for an elderly or disabled person.
• Volunteer at your local police station or faith-based organisation.
• Offer your help at a local children’s home or an old age home.
• Offer to look after the children of a single mother to give her a break or take the children on an outing.
• Mow someone’s lawn or help them to fix things around the garden or house.
• Read to someone who can’t read.
• Collect unused clothing and blankets from friends and donate them to homeless people.
• Collect old newspapers from a school, community centre or hospital and take them to a recycling centre.
• Visit someone in hospital.

Welcome to the United Nations

‘Inspire change, make every day a Mandela Day’

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“Happy birthday Grandpa Madiba. You remain true and the only icon to Africa.” Okero Issack Otieno, in Nairobi, shared his salute to the legendary former South African President Nelson Mandela with Africa Renewal .

The freedom fighter turned 94 on 18 July. But his birthday has also been designated as Nelson Mandela International Day by the United Nations. It is in recognition of Mr. Mandela’s leading role and support for Africa’s struggle for liberation and unity. It also hails his outstanding contribution to the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.

To mark the day, the UN has joined the Nelson Mandela Foundation to ask people to give 67 minutes of their time to help others. Mr. Otieno heeded the call by doing some charitable work in a low-income district in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “Spent my 67 minutes supporting orphans at a home in Kawangware,” he said. “Good to give back.”

Mr. Otieno is not alone in taking part in the festivities. In neighbouring Tanzania, Nuru Kessay, a student at Benjamin William Mkapa High School, recently travelled to South Africa to learn more about Mandela’s legacy. What really inspired her was his will to serve his people and fight apartheid even at the risk of his life. “I learned that all that I want to achieve is in my hands. All I want to do, I can do, no matter what experiences I pass through. As long as I have an aim and I am willing to do it, I can do it,” she told UN Radio.

Nelson Mandela’s birthday has become an annual call to action for people around the world. They have been inspired by his service to humanity. Mr. Mandela has devoted 67 years of his life to public service, as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.

Since 2010, the UN has been holding events around the world to carry forth this legacy. This year’s theme, “Building a caring world — Nelson Mandela’s vision,” calls on people to inspire change.

Africa has been shaken up by what has been dubbed as the “Arab Spring.” In Egypt and Libya, popular protests movements toppled long-standing regimes, noted the president of the UN General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser.

In his remarks at a UN gathering in New York, he said, “Mr. Mandela’s persistence in cultivating national consensus and social cohesion resonates deeply with the Arab Awakening.” Mr. Al-Nasser called on people to “rise to the challenges to realize Mandela’s vision.”

Meanwhile, Jeff Radebe, minister of justice and constitutional development in South Africa reflected on the important strides made over the years — referring to Mr. Mandela by his Xhosa clan name. “South Africa, Africa and the world have changed since 1918, when Madiba was born,” Mr. Radebe said. “Almost the entire continent of Africa was under imperialism and colonialism. It is symbolic that Madiba was born at the height of the First World War, when the dream of a peaceful world, which Mandela has tirelessly worked for, was unimaginable.”

Mr. Mandela spent 27 years in prison fighting racist apartheid rule in South Africa, and later won a Noble Peace Prize for his efforts. He has become a symbol of freedom and justice to many people around the world. His story is one of change, of hope.

“Make every day a Mandela Day,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the day, urging people to commit one minute for each year of Mr. Mandela’s own service to humanity. “Nelson Mandela gave 67 years of his life to bring change to the people of South Africa. Our gift to him can — and must — be to change our world for the better.”

—Africa Renewal online

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