Attivismo civico & Terzo settore
Preserving the legacy
In South Africa he is the Madiba, the elder. As the charismatic anti-apartheid leader celebrates his 90th birthday, the Nelson Mandela Foundation will be dedicated to preserving his legacy.
Happy Birthday, Nelson Mandela. With this wish more than 80 thousand people from Tanzania to Uzbekistan have pledged their support, by choosing to donate their chosen sum, starting from 2 euros, dollars or pounds, to the Nelson Mandela Foundation and associated charities via a website (www.happybirthdaymandela.com) designed in honour of the Madiba’s 90th anniversary on July 18.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, founded by Africa’s charismatic leader and anti-apartheid activist in 1999, has recently transformed itself from broad based implementation agency to contemporary ‘memory’ institution to promote the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Until 2006 the Foundation, that in 2007 had assets for almost 100 million South African rands (about 9 million euros), focused on financing education and health programmes – between 1999 and 2002 more than 120 schools were built thanks to the Foundation’s rural education programme. Today, the Nelson Mandela Foundation has a new mission: to collect and record all the resources that document the story of the life and times of its founder. An act of self celebration as the charismatic activist reaches his 90th year of life? Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Achmat Dangor assures us that it is not. And that the Foundation’s Centre of Memory and Dialogue in Houghton, one of Johannesburg’s wealthiest suburbs, will not become a passive museum to show off the memorabilia of South Africa’s most admired Madiba. Rather, the newly established memory programme is to be a means to champion the values that have driven Mandela’s lifetime struggle against injustice.
‘Actively’ is the word that the CEO uses to describe the way the Centre’s work will be used to promote an understanding of Africa’s “rich history” even though, if the 250 thousand monthly website visitors are anything to go by, perhaps interactively may be more appropriate. Web based technology will in fact be at the heart of the Centre’s archives, which are to be open and accessible to all at www.nelsonmandela.org. More than just a way to ‘spread the word’, Achmat Dangor hopes the Foundation’s work will also help to address today’s challenges, such as ensuring that, in a continent where more than half the population is under the age of 20, Africa’s tomorrow will have a solid leadership capacity. A goal that the Foundation believes will only be achieved by teaching the art that Nelson Mandela is a master of: dialogue. Listening and speaking and getting people to listen and speak to each other, says the Foundation is an art and one of Mandela’s most precious legacies. A legacy that the Foundation hopes will eventually lead to tangible changes in the lives of ordinary people. How? By keeping the memory of past struggles for peace and victories achieved through consensus alive.
With almost 30 million rand spent on project expenses in 2007, 12.8 million of which on health, 6.4 on education, 6 on the Centre of Memory and 2.4 on dialogue and leadership, the Foundation’s words are not empty promises. One of the guiding principles of the Foundation’s operations is to be “explicitly and unambiguously” aligned with its two sister charity organisations – the Nelson Mandela Children Fund and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation – both of which work on the field to promote welfare, education and development in Africa. As well as with the Foundation’s flagship 46664 AIDS Campaign, that, during the run up to Mandela’s Birthday Bash charity concert held in London’s Hyde Park on June 27, raised more than 5 million pounds (almost 6.5 million euros).
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