Nelson Mandela Day

Nelson Mandela Day

Mandela Day has been celebrated each year on July 18th, Nelson Mandela’s birthday.

Nelson Mandela Day

This day was officially declared as Mandela Day by the United Nations, as a global call to action for people to celebrate the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world. On this day you are invited to do 67 minutes of service, a movement in which one is asked to donate one minute for every year he spent as a public figure, as a gesture of solidarity to a shared humanity.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president.

Nelson Mandela was also well know for his sayings - here are just a few:

  1. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
  2. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it"
  3. “It always seems impossible, until it is done.”
  4. “Lead from the back – and let others believe they are in front.”
  5. “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

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