Syrian students visit Foundation

Feb 15, 2008 – A group of Syrian students visited the Nelson Mandela Foundation today as part of a trip to South Africa that they won in an essay competition.

The competition was organised by the Syrian Ministry of Education, the South African Embassy in Damascus and the National Union of Syrian Students. It was open to all students at the University of Damascus.

Copies of Arabic translations of Long Walk to Freedom were distributed to the students and their challenge was to analyse the book and write on its relevance in their lives.

The four winners, Mielad Al Oudt Allah, Maya Alkateb, Mohamed Dibo and Mostafa Abdul Fattah, won the competition after submitting essays with individually chosen titles.

The Foundation hosted the winners, along with their delegation leader Iyhab Hamed and representatives from the South African Department of Education and the Department of Foreign Affairs. A representative of the MTN Group, which sponsored the trip, was also present.

Long Walk to Freedom (a reading) is a study of the autobiography by Alkateb, a third-year politics student. Flowers and Thorns is an essay by Fattah in which he studies the similarities between the lives of Mr Mandela and Bosnia’s former president, Alija Izetbegović. Fattah is a second-year student of translation. Al Oudt Allah, studying towards a Master’s degree in politics, takes a look at Mr Mandela in the context of his preparation for leadership and how the book affects his own life. Dibo is a fourth-year economics student and analyses the life of Mr Mandela in The Castle of Freedom.

Nelson Mandela Foundation Chief Executive Officer Achmat Dangor welcomed the delegation and conveyed Mr Mandela’s sincere welcome and thanks. He complimented the students on their work and expressed the hope that such competitions might be held in South Africa to encourage people to “remember the past and reflect on it”.

The visitors took part in a candid question-and-answer session chaired by Mothomang Diaho, head of the Dialogue for Justice Programme in the Foundation’s Centre of Memory and Dialogue. The delegation members were curious about the work of the Foundation and expressed their deep gratitude for the opportunity to be in South Africa.

Hamed, a member of the Executive Bureau of the National Union of Syrian Students, thanked the Nelson Mandela Foundation for hosting the students.

“We are proud to be at the Foundation of this great leader, Nelson Mandela. The youth in Syria are interested in the careers of these leaders, and our history is rich in examples [of such leaders],” he said.

Johan Oberholzer, representing the Department of Foreign Affairs Deputy Director of Levant 1 (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria), said that projects like these helped to further relations with countries such as Syria.

“The South African Ambassador to Damascus, Mohamed Dangor, is the one who came up with this idea. Its purpose is to build relations and promote South Africa,” he said.

MTN Group’s Senior Manager of Government Relations and CSR, Tshepo Ramodibe, complimented the initiative as helping to create awareness in Syria of African cultures.

“During this visit, our role is to show our support and show the delegation what MTN, which operates in Syria, is all about. We will host them at the MTN headquarters in Johannesburg later in the day,” said Ramodibe.

The Department of Education’s Assistant Director of International Relations (Africa and Middle East), Tebogo Mnisi, said that for the department the visit had meant strengthening cultural interaction with Syria. Mnisi had taken the Syrian delegation to various historically significant places, such as Robben Island in Cape Town.

Alkateb said she was happy to be in South Africa, describing the country as “colourful and clean”. “I have made friends during my brief visit, and I want to go bungee jumping the next time I come,” she laughed.