JOHANNESBURG - Twelve volunteers from various countries including South Africa, England and Canada will embark on a 67 day trip from Cape Town to Cairo to raise funds for the construction of a free Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college in Pretoria.
The non-fee-paying college will be based in the rural community of Ngobi in Hammanskraal using 100% recycled material.
The team hopes to raise R3.6 million towards the project during the journey, which will start in Cape Town on Mandela Day on July 18, with stops in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan before getting to Egypt.
Mandela Day is commemorated in honour of Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013 and would have turned 100 years old on July 18.
The team says the TVET college will create jobs for surrounding communities and is aimed at bridging the skills gap in sectors such as education, manufacturing and engineering.
The Japanese embassy and radio station TransAfrica are some of the sponsors for the initiative, whose 67-day trip draws inspiration from the number of minutes people are called upon to spend on charity work on Mandela Day, to match the 67 years the global icon spent fighting for social justice.