1. Background
18 July is birthday of the late former President Nelson R. Mandela, founder of Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and its sister organisations. Different organisations, individuals and groups tended to mark the day in one form or another within their means.
Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund marks the day in the form of the Annual Children’s Celebration with a theme and children congregate at its premises to read him well-wishing messages, performing songs and dance and reciting poems. Hosted on most suitable day decided jointly with day care centres and schools of participants, the children’s celebration remains a standing event on the Fund’s annual calendar year even after Mr. Mandela’s retirement from public life and set to continue with his passing as an honour by the Fund.
The United Nation Declaration of July 18 as International Mandela Day on November 2009, on the year of Mr. Mandela 91st birthday, helped to release global energy and movement for good and to generally help those in less fortunate circumstances. This is in honour of Mr. Mandela’s 67 years of service to the human struggle for freedom.
To join the world community, the Fund has since marked the day by giving added attention to various causes that fall within its programme work and carried out by implementing partners.
Added attention to these causes comes in the form of placing them on the world wide web for interested parties to be familiar with what each project does and the associated needs to carrying out their good work.
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2. What Mandela Day Means
Mandela Day is based on the idea that if every individual dedicates a short amount of time to making the world a better place, there is immense potential for collective good to flourish. Mandela Day is a call to action for every individual, group, corporate, to take responsibility for making the world a better place, one step at a time, in response to areas of need within their communities and guided by means at their disposal.
​Madiba the Public Servant Video available below:

3. Mandela Day: is as much an energiser to the Children’s Fund
The joy of being allowed to be children, to play, sing, dance, dream and be lost in the wonder of the innocence of childhood that should be delivered from homelessness, poverty, hunger, harm, danger, vulnerability, neglect and diseases. Any assistance given and received by the Fund or its partners counts to make everyone who shares the vision of the Fund a fellow traveller and commits to the belief that Every Child Counts.
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4. Programme work support
To volunteer support for Mandela Day  and for ease of reference to Programme work support, listed on the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund website are various causes and their needs for which believers in the vision of the Fund are invited to choose from to lend a helping hand by clicking link to programme work support http://www.nelsonmandelachildrensfund.com/who-we-are/partnership/#tour-1246. The listed causes are associated with implementing partners with established presence across SA’s nine provinces.
To  establish contact with any of the preferred partners to help please call Communications Officer Kagiso Bonoko on Tel (011) 274-5600 or send email to KagisoB@nmcf.co.za for vetting purposes confirming that the said partner is genuine as well as to be directed to the Fund’s relevant  Programme Specialists in the province for further details and engagement. The Fund website is:  www.nelsonmandelachildrensfund.com
Unique proposals, falling outside listed causes, that interested may wish to test feasibility with the involvement of the Fund are all advised to submit concept to Senior Programmes Manager Ncazelo Mlilo to  email address ncazelom@nmcf.co.za to be reviewed for viability.

5. Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Project
For children’s specialist health care needs, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund has placed before South Africa a business case for the establishment of a teaching paediatric specialist Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital for which groundbreaking was done on March 20, 2014.
The key need for the establishment of the Children’s Hospital relate to capital costs details of which are obtainable on the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital Trust website being www.nelsonmandelachildrenshospital.org.

The Annual Children’s Celebration is one of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (the Fund) calendar events. It started off as a time Nelson Mandela allocated during his birthday month to celebrate with children. The Annual Children’s Celebration has not stopped with Madiba’s passing. The event continues to give children the opportunity to celebrate the work of the Fund and keep Madiba’s legacy alive in a manner that most suits them.

This year marks 20 years of the Fund being in existence since establishment in 1995.  The Fund has been working tirelessly over the years to change the way society treats its children and youth. On its 20th anniversary, the Fund wishes to reflect on the results of the work it had done. That reflection is an invitation to children and youth to share their experiences in the journey they have travelled with the Fund in its search for a hero in every child. Listed amongst these fellow-travellers, are heroes and heroines that make the story worth telling.

The 2015 Children’s Celebration

This year’s Children’s Celebration took place on 10 July under the theme “There is a hero in every child”. Attendees included children and youth from around Gauteng and some from as far as Limpopo and North West Province.

Showcased day were various forms of children’s special talents which included traditional dance, poetry, music, brass band, ballet, etc.  The audience was captivated by the raw talent exhibited by children and it was in that spirit that we purposely sought to draw out a hero that is within every child.

This allowed children and youth to express themselves, share their talents and stories.
The Programme of the day was co-hosted by Rorisang Thandekiso (who started working with the Fund from an early age) and Reabetswe Mmekwa (who was being mentored by Rorisang on the day). Below are the profiles of the Heroes who participated in the event.

Heroes Profiles

5. Kgodiso Mokonyane – (Female)
Kgodiso’s involvement with Efeng Bacha helped her to develop a family away from home with Efeng Bacha members and the Fund’s staff. This helped her to obtain her grade 12 with distinction, be in the North West province’s top 20 matric pupils in 2004 and obtain a BSc (Hons) degree in Actuarial Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2008. She believes in constantly learning and developing herself, and is currently pursuing a masters degree in Actuarial Science at the University of Cape Town. Efeng Bacha also helped her realise her passion for leadership and how to use it to truly realise a better future for all South Africans. As such, she got involved with the Association of South African Black Actuarial Professionals (ASABA) when she got to university and eventually founded its women’s committee. Later on, she became President of ASABA – a role that she currently occupies.

Kgodiso has grown within the NMCF family over the past 12 years and is now a Trustee of
​the fund.

Exhibitions
We also took the time to invite other organisations that are involved in changing lives to showcase their work.  The following organisations exhibited their wares:

National Council for Persons with Disabilities in South Africa (NCPPDSA)

NCPPDSA is a leading disability organisation with 75 years’ experience of enabling, supporting and enhancing the quality of life for persons with disabilities.  As one of South Africa’s leading non-profit organisations, the NCPPDSA has shown great ability to adapt and transform to the ever changing landscape of the disability sector and that of non-profit organisations.

Southern Africa Youth Project

On 21 July 2015, the Fund hosted a five member delegation of the French Rugby Federation. The Fund has a longstanding friendship with this body, and each year has presented an opportunity for both parties to engage even deeper with regards to what meaningful contribution can be made to ensure that the Funds achieves its mission of changing the way society treats its children and youth.
The delegation donated laptops to the Fund and took an opportunity to visit the site where the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital is being built, and were marvelled at the progress they saw.

About the French Rugby Federation

The French Rugby Federation (French: Fédération Française de rugby (FFR)) is the governing body for rugby union in France. It is responsible for the French national team and the Ligue nationale de rugby that administers the country’s professional leagues.