Cape Town - Books for prisoners, mass health and wellness checks, a record breaking mosaic food can attempt and a march to Parliament.
These are among the efforts taking place on Monday as the world marks 67 Minutes for Mandela.
This year's theme for Mandela Day is focused around: “Do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are”, with activities planned in over 166 cities globally.
United Nations (UN) secretary general, António Guterres encouraged everyone to “find hope in Nelson Mandela’s example and inspiration in his vision”.
“Today, the world honours a giant of our time. Our world today is marred by war; overwhelmed by emergencies; blighted by racism, discrimination, poverty, and inequalities; and threatened by climate disaster. Let us find hope in Nelson Mandela’s example and inspiration in his vision. Today and every day, let us honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy by taking action,” he said.
In Khayelitsha, a group of young Masidlale musicians will put on 67 minutes of music from 12.30pm, as their way of giving back at the Lingelethu Community Centre from.
Sharing the stage with the Masidlale musicians will be African traditional music artist, Nomapostile Nyiki and the Gugulethu Older People’s Forum Choir.
Nyiki said: “I have always wanted to perform for the elderly in our communities, it is very rare to find our grandparents in theatres and taking the music to them is such a beautiful gesture.”
Taking to the streets of Cape Town, ordinary citizens, led by civic organisation SA1stForum will be marching to the gates of Parliament to have their voices heard.
“We are doing this to make those in authority aware that we, ordinary South Africans, are gatvol/unhappy about load shedding, the high fuel prices, and the indiscriminate killing of our people. We are demanding that they do something about the situation,” said SA1stForum convenor, advocate Rod Solomons.
Ladles of Love are encouraging families and corporate companies to come out and have fun doing good, as they attempt to break the world record for the largest food can mosaic.
The event kicks off at the CTICC at 9am where they will be creating a giant mosaic of Madiba’s face.
“We will use food cans in primary colours to form the mosaic, and volunteers doing their 67 minutes will be guided to help us place cans and create the image using a ‘paint-by-numbers’ style technique.” the organisation said.
To smash the record they called on the public to buy food can tickets at R100, which buys five food cans, and/or R150 for 67-minute volunteer time slots, via webtickets.co.za
Meanwhile the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (Jics) has called on South Africans to donate to its ongoing book drive for incarcerated and detained persons in correctional facilities across the country.
“Access to sufficient recreational and educational materials is vital to rehabilitation efforts and to creating conditions of detention consistent with human dignity,” said Jics.
Books can be dropped off at the Jics regional office, Standard Bank Building 9th Floor, 1 Thibault Square, 7100.
FoodForward SA in partnership with Pick n Pay will also be hosting a mass packing event at Century City Conference Centre ‘The Square’, where non-perishable food items donated by customers will be sorted and packed for distribution.
Sign up for a packaging event can be done via webtickets.co.za
The City’s Health Department, in conjunction with the Ed Bham Foundation and the Western Cape Department of Health, will host a mass health and wellness community drive with health checks and entertainment between, iThemba Primary School, Capricorn between 10am and 4pm.
Cape Times