From pretend painting classrooms to summiting Africa's peak, South Africans turn charity into action despite tough Saturday ask.
Mandla Moyo receives a scarf from 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day founder Carolyn Steyn at Joburg Theatre Park in Johannesburg, 18 July 2026. Nelson Mandela International Day under the theme “It’s still in our hands to combat poverty and inequity”. The global movement encourages individuals to dedicate at least 67 minutes of their time to community service in honour of Mandela’s 67 years of public service. Picture: Nigel Sibanda / The Citizen
It’s a tough ask getting people to do something for charity when the day falls on a Saturday. It’s not like you’re getting a couple of hours off from your day job to pretend-paint a school classroom, cosplay as a gardener or peel a couple of potatoes for a soup kitchen.
The fact that many still did make it to the various Mandela Day commemorations speak volumes.
We shouldn’t even need a Mandela Day. The long walk to freedom should have been over by now with everyone living in utopia.
It isn’t and we are not, which is an unpleasant truth all on its own.
The fact that we have to even invoke the Father of the Nation’s name to get us to do better, after all he gave us – including, but not limited to, a peaceful transition and speaking speak truth to power from his retirement to the next administration’s HIV/Aids debacle – tells us some more.
The fact that there are those who would accuse him of being a sellout, ignoring their own personal or political agency to make a difference in the last 30 years, is textbook millennial myopia.
But in typical South Africa fashion, there are people making a difference every Mandela Day, like Richard Mabaso.
Since 2012, he’s been leading teams, with intrepid mountaineer Sibusiso Vilane, up to the highest point of Africa and summiting Kilimanjaro in Kenya on Madiba’s birthday: 18 July, Mandela Day.
Mabaso doesn’t do it for a bit of adventure tourism, but to raise awareness for the plight of schoolgirls in poverty who end up ruining their education by missing school every month because of the stigma.
Dis-Chem has run their parallel Million Comforts campaign making sure there are enough donations to keep the girls in class.
Another wonderful initiative is Carolyn Steyn’s 67 blankets, which you might have seen in your local shopping centre.
This is a project that brings people from all walks of life together to knit for a greater cause, donating to those that need them or selling them to raise funds.
Buy a blanket if you haven’t yet, let the Dis-Chem tellers encourage you to buy an extra couple of packs of sanitary products.
Let’s celebrate them and everyone else who did their bit to make this country a better place for all who live in it.
These days we need every single one of those 67 minutes.
