In celebrating Nelson Mandela’s legacy, The Elders will honour organisations transforming their communities for the better across the world.
This year-long global campaign was announced yesterday as South Africans and the rest of the world dedicated their 67 minutes helping those in need on Nelson Mandela International Day.
Every week for the next 12 months, in the lead-up to what would’ve been Mandela’s 100th birthday, it will honour groups or movements leading peace, health, justice and equality initiatives - principles Mandela stood for.
The group yesterday marked its 10th birthday by launching the Walk Together campaign.
Speaking at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) yesterday, Mandela’s widow and humanitarian Graça Machel said the initiative was one way The Elders could fulfil Mandela’s mandate.
“Working with civil society partner networks around the world, the Walk Together campaign will celebrate 52 inspirational organisations - one each week, which we will call ‘Sparks of Hope’.
“Each one is a community or a collective that has worked to make progress on freedoms, often in the face of insurmountable challenges.
“Through embracing the visibility of their brilliant ideas and innovative ideas, we aim to offer hope where there is despair. We want to build a bright web of hope, a vibrant space were freedom is celebrated and promoted, and compassion and courageous conversations are encouraged,” Machel said.
The Elders is a group of global leaders founded by Mandela a decade ago, made up of former heads of state, peace activists and human rights advocates.
Elders include Machel, Kofi Annan, Ricardo Lagos, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Hina Jilani, Mary Robinson, Ernesto Zedillo and Gro Harlem Brundtland.
The group shares a common commitment to peace and universal human rights, and bring with them a wealth of diverse expertise and experience in peace-making and peace-building.
Over the past 10 years it has worked on some of the world’s most pressing issues, including the HIV epidemic, climate change, refugee crises, and conflicts in Israel, Sudan and South Sudan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
The Elders gathered in the Mother City yesterday, where they were greeted by hundreds of people on the Grand Parade outside the City Hall.
This is where Mandela made his celebrated freedom speech in 1990. From there they walked to the CTICC.
Various community leaders and activists were also present, including from District Six, Mitchells Plain, Manenberg, Lavender Hill, and Khayelitsha.
The event also featured music from South African band Freshly Ground and Thandiswa Mazwai.
Machel said The Elders wanted young people to join in the journey, and work to build a world they were proud of.
“Walk together, with The Elders, for us to pass on the baton of the experience they have accumulated, but really acknowledging that you are the shapers of your own world. You are the builders of your own future. So, inspired by Madiba’s freedoms, be bold and change your world,” Machel said.
As chairperson of the Rakhine State - a neutral and impartial body which aims to propose concrete measures for improving the welfare of all people in the Rakhine state in Myanmar - Annan was unable to attend the gathering yesterday. However, in a video message played to the audience, he said Mandela meant a lot to the world, and he wished everyone well in the celebration of his life.
Lagos, 78, served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006.
He spoke yesterday and said it was an honour for him to play a part in building on Mandela’s legacy.
Lagos is a lawyer and an academic, and he served as a delegate to several UN conferences under Salvador Allende and played a key role in securing Chile’s return to democracy in the late 1980s after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
“The Elders were founded to bring hope where there is despair, and courage where there is fear. Walk to freedom ends, as each new generation will set new goals they wish to achieve, and will have to work towards it,” Lagos said.