This year’s Mandela Day on 18 July was a poignant one, as Nelson Mandela spent his birthday in hospital in South Africa, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of those who celebrated around the world.
Mandela Day was created to honour the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world and can work towards a shared understanding of humanity, no matter how small the gesture.
To celebrate Mandela Day in Dublin, the South African Embassy organised a clean-up on the banks of the Grand Canal as part of a Dublin City Council initiative whereby organisations are encouraged to adopt a street or area to spruce up.
As part of a new initiative, over the last six months the City Council has been encouraging organizations to adopt a street or area to clean up, said Bryan Hanney of the Dublin City Council Waste Management.
A 25-strong group comprising both embassy and city council employees gathered along the canal at 1pm, armed with brooms and litter pickers, to spend at least 67 minutes giving back to the community in honour of Nelson Mandela’s 67 years of public service.
Carol Roszkowski, an embassy employee who attended the clean-up, felt that the day was important. “It’s a really good day to give back to the people of the community and to help,” she said.
Kevin O’Sullivan, public domain enforcement officer for Dublin City Council, was one of the city officials overseeing the clean-up.
“We are here today to celebrate that [Mandela is] still alive and we are joining in the celebration to show our appreciation for the work that he’s done over the years,” he told Metro Éireann. “We need another few like him in the world.”
South African ambassador to Ireland Jeremiah Ndou was also on hand to help beautify the canal bank.
“The message behind Mandela Day is first of all we’re honouring the legacy of Mandela, waiting for the good of the people of the world,” he said. “And secondly, we celebrate this day because it’s his birthday. It’s significant today because as you know he’s lying in hospital sick, but still he inspires a lot of people, not only in South Africa but all around the world.”
Ambassador Ndou felt that Mandela’s message was especially important now since his admittance to the hospital.
“As he’s lying there [it’s like] the same spirit of 1992, when he was released [and] the nation came together. Black and white, they’re together in support of what he has done, in support of him in the hospital, and to us it’s a significance – it shows the role that he played,” he said.
“The legacy [Mandela] leaves all of us will be to believe that we have to work towards ensuring that we work as a nation together united. He worked for the better good of Africa and the world, he worked for peace and to protect human rights, reconciliation – all these things that he stood for – and that’s why even himself, when this day was declared, he said ‘Every human being can contribute towards the good of others.’”
In addition to the canal clean-up, the embassy staff also spent time in the morning repainting the gate walls outside St Joseph’s Hospital with volunteers from banking multinational Citi Ireland.
“You see these people [in the hospital], you talk to them, and you are doing this because you feel it will positively impact their lives. It is moving,” said the ambassador.
