Officials from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC), Office of the Premier (OTP), Department of Sport, Recreation, Art and Culture (DSRAC) and Nelson Mandela Museum celebrated the late former president Nelson Mandela’s birthday by handing over a library as part of making a difference in the lives of learners.
The museum identified the SOS Children’s Village in South Africa based in Mthatha. This village played a significant role in helping children and young people whose lives had been negatively impacted by disadvantaged backgrounds. They also spent their 67 minutes renovating a classroom to be converted into a library.
This library would also accommodate one of the community schools in the area. The granddaughter of the late President Nelson Mandela, Ndileka Mandela, urged government to assist young people with skills so that they could be able to chase poverty away. She said that Mandela’s wish was that people should make everyday a Nelson Mandela Day. According to her the attention was that on his birthday it should be a day where he is remembered not only for one day.
“He wanted people to do things showing love every day. A lot of people think that when remembering my grandfather you must do the big thing. Yet it does not have to be something big, but doing something for other people everyday – that’s what exactly people should do to live Mandela day on a daily basis,” said Ndileka.
Ndileka said her grandfather never liked the PR exercise but instead wanted people to assist others. She said for instance a person could adopt a certain family and take care of it, so that would be exactly what her grandfather wanted.
The MEC for Department of Sport, Recreation, Art and Culture (DSRAC), Fezeka Nkomonye said that they had converted a boardroom into a library, stating that they were doing this because Dr Nelson Mandela loved education and he also loved children.
“We want to make sure that everyday becomes a Mandela day. The Department of Education have a duty to ensure that children, particularly Grade 1, Grade 3 and Grade 6, are able to know how to read and write,” said Nkomonye.
She said, as the department, they had a responsibility to assist it by making sure that there are libraries that are in the localities. She confirmed that there were still few libraries, more especially in the rural areas. Nkomonye added that they were on a mission to ensure that in the rural areas they bring mobile libraries. “We also have an initiative of changing the classrooms and putting in books, but due to financial problems we have still not finalised our plan. We still need above 400 but we have already managed to do 300 libraries with internet.”
National Director for SOS Children’s Village in South Africa, Lonwabo Kulati, confirmed that this library would also be used by other children from outside this village. “They would be able to do their research and homework,” said Kulati.
