A typical blue-skied winter's day ushered in Mandela Day 2016 in Gauteng, bringing with it a flurry of activity as individuals and organisations set out to do their 67 minutes – and more – in recognition of Madiba's service to South Africa.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, after announcing its intentions for this year's Mandela Day at the official launch in June, reconvened at Dr Mathole Motshekga Primary School in Tembisa to honour the day and to continue the efforts that have been under way for the past few weeks.
The work to which the Foundation and its partners have committed themselves has been undertaken in careful consultation with the school to ensure that its needs are accurately and sustainably addressed. These needs also fall within the four pillars prioritised by the Foundation's Mandela Day activities, which are literacy and education, food security, shelter and infrastrcture and the environment.
Dr Mathole Motshekga Primary School readies itself for its Mandela Day proceedings
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Yase Godlo, Mandela Day manager at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, thanked everyone for coming, and especially the event's most important guests, its learners. He also acknowledged the numerous Mandela Day partners in attendance, as well as community members, prominent celebrities and important humanitarians, including Graca Machel.
Machel, too, expressed her gratitude to the learners: "We are very honoured that you allowed us to come to your school and to share a few minutes of the day with you. I want to say to you that, for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, this means commitment. It's just about one day. We were here in June, we are here today and we will come back again and again as we progress together to transform this school.
"We have millions of South Africans who care about children, who care about education ... I want to tell you: you are going to fly and to fly high. The sky is the limit. Each one of us has come here because we believe you will fly. God bless you.
"But the day is not for speeches," she said in closing. "Now we have to get our hands dirty. We have to go and work."
The learners were treated a reading from the South African's children's book After the Rain by its author Lefeedi Maja.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)
Learners listen with wrapt attention.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)With that, teams dispersed to pursue various activities, including planting vegetables, painting the school's classrooms and organising its brand-new library.
"Food & Trees for Africa is the Nelson Mandela Foundation's official food security partner," said Robyn Hills, programme manager at Food & Trees for Africa. "We have assisted this school with training so far, planting materials and resources, as well as putting up the bird-net structure because they were having a really tough time harvesting the spinach before the sparrows got there. We're hopefully coming back to install another water tank uphill so that they can gradient feed their garden during the rainy season.
"There are three community members who run this garden. It's primarly a community garden, as opposed to a school garden. They contribute 20 percent of what they harvest to the school nutrition programme in exchange for using the land ... It's an enormous garden. They're producing really good kale and green peppers and their own seedlings, which means it's sustainable.
"We do food gardens throughout the year, but Mandela Day is an opportunity to launch projects and for corporate sponsors to get in touch with beneficiaries who we've assessed and who we know will look after the gardens. It's the beginning of very fruitful and nurtured projects."
Graca Machel receives a helping hand with her lettuce and beetroot planting.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)
Food & Trees for Africa have been assisting with the vegetable garden.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Proctor & Gamble (P&G) assisted with the school's library. Said Tammi McMahon-Panther, legal counsel at P&G: "Yearly, on Mandela Day, P&G usually partners with someone to do a couple of different activities. This was a school-related activity to help with the library, shelving all the books ... I think it's important, because we've all got to give of our time to make things a little bit better."
Book drives conducted by a number of organisations.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)
Empty bookshelves quickly fill up.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)
The painting team hard at work.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)The morning's events were a poignant and meaningful continuation of work that began several weeks ago and that will continue in the weeks and months to come, so making every day a Mandela Day.