Statement to Media Briefing
on Nelson Mandela International Day
by South African Ambassador to the UAE, H.E. Yacoob Abba
Omar
Abu Dhabi, 22 June 2011
What does one give as a birthday gift to someone who has
dedicated their life to the cause of humanity? Fortunately for us
in 2009 the United Nations provided the answer by declaring 18 July
Nelson Mandela International Day. Working with the Nelson Mandela
Foundation, thousands of people throughout the world will mark the
day by spending 67 minutes of Madiba's birthday contributing to
some worthy cause. The foundation is focussing on the number 67
because that is the number of years Madiba spent in uninterrupted
active duty.
There were some activities last year in different parts of the
world. This year we expect a huge increase in events around the
world. This will be the first time such an effort is being made to
publicly promote the day in the UAE. We are grateful to the Nahtam
Social Responsibility for having taken this initiative.
Since 2009 a wide range of activities have been organised to
mark the day:
- The Johannesburg Orchestra, led by its conductor Richard Cock,
gave a concert to 1 200 children in an impoverished area in
Johannesburg.
- Boxers from Umtata and East London met for a tournament in
Nelson Mandela's ancestral village, Qunu.
- An IT company, Net Dynamix, helped set up the websites of the
first 67 not-for-profit organisations which contacted them.
- The state broadcaster, SABC, launched a programme to plant
46664 trees in different parts of the country.
- This is but a sampling of activities which included visits to
orphanages, homes of the elderly, cleaning up in communities, and
so forth.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has adopted the slogan: "Take
Action. Inspire Change. Make Every Day a Mandela Day." Naturally
activities need to be designed with the local conditions in mind.
So, for example in South Africa a number of activities were aimed
to reducing the stigma around HIV/AIDS - which is a major challenge
for us. In the UAE we can volunteer doing some exercise with
someone living with diabetes or obesity. We can also look at how we
can encourage energy efficiency, or contributing to move towards
renewable energy, or reducing the carbon emissions level.
We support the efforts of Nahtam Social Responsibility to have a
birthday canvas during the week 12-18 July. The South African
Embassy has written to all the diplomatic missions in the UAE
calling upon them to mark the week by bringing their staff and
members of their community to sign messages on the canvass. We call
upon artists and other members of the public to put up their
birthday wish for Nelson Mandela on that canvas. We are pleased
that the United Nations Resident Coordinator is firmly behind this
campaign. We would like the media to come into the campaign as
partners: radio stations could have phon- ins from people saying
what they would be doing on Mandela Day or newspapers/magazines
could encourage people to write in.
We hope that this one day can snowball into people and
organisations dedicating each Monday as Mandela Day when we
dedicate a few minutes in the interests of our community and of
humanity.