The Nelson Mandela Foundation, with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, invites you to cover this year’s dialogue event commemorating the passing of Nelson Mandela on the 5th of December. The event will take place virtually, streamed from the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s auditorium to a virtual platform available at events.nelsonmandela.org. It will also be streamed live on the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s YouTube channel.
We are delighted to announce that award-winning author Tsitsi Dangerembga and the First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos will be in conversation with the Foundation’s Chief Executive, Sello Hatang. Mrs Graça Machel, Nelson Mandela’s widow, will also provide reflections at the event.
The dialogue will explore liberatory social imaginaries in the contexts of profound social, political and economic divides. It will touch on critical issues both in South Africa and across the globe, including the rise of nationalism and xenophobia, the failures of democracy’s ‘social contracts’, and the relationships between states when there are humanitarian abuses. Speakers will reflect on the legacy of Nelson Mandela and offer new ideas for the future in the wake of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
About the Speakers
Tsitsi Dangerembga - Writer, filmmaker, public intellectual and cultural activist from Zimbabwe. Dangerembga is a prominent speaker around the globe and the director and founder of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust, an institution focusing on the role of all arts disciplines in development. She is most widely known as the author of the award-winning books Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not and This Mournable Body (which is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize).
Monica Geingos - Entrepreneur, lawyer and the First Lady of Namibia since 2015. Ms Geingos was a long-standing member of high-level policy advisory Boards including the President’s Economic Advisory Council, the governing party Think Tank and the National Council of the Namibian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She has close to 20 years’ experience in the financial sector and has supported numerous social justice initiatives, including in her role as a UNAIDS Special Advocate for Young Women and Adolescent Girls.
Graça Machel – Social justice activist and international humanitarian. Mrs Machel’s decades-long professional and public life is rooted in Mozambique’s struggle for índependence and international advocacy for women and children’s rights. She was a freedom fighter in Mozambique’s FRELIMO movement and was the country’s first minister of education. She produced the renowned UNICEF report on “The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children” which changed the way the UN and member states respond in conflict zones. She is a founding member and the Deputy Chair of The Elders and is a member of the UNSG’s Sustainable Development Advocacy Group.
Sello Hatang - Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Previously, Hatang was the Head of Information Communications and Spokesperson for the South African Human Rights Commission. He participated in the post-1994 transformation of the National Archives including providing archival support for the TRC and is a former director of the South African History Archive at Wits University. Hatang is a 2014 Archbishop Tutu fellow and has received international awards for his social justice work.
Venue: events.nelsonmandela.org
Date of Event: Saturday, 5 December 2020
Times: 17h30 - 19h00
To attend this event, please register Here.
The stream will also be available on YouTube at This link should you wish to carry the event live.
Media and Technical Enquiries
Kneo Mokgopa
(+27) 076 420 1910
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