* IFP GAUTENG to spend MANDELA DAY with the elderely in SOWETO!
As part of celebrating the birthday of Nelson Mandela, the eldest statesman in South Africa, the Inkatha Freedom Party in Gauteng will spend its 67 minutes of community work with one hundred senior citizens at Meadowlands Zone 11 (next to Anchor Secondary School) tomorrow from 1pm.
The day will kick-start with the IFP Gauteng handing over blankets to the elderly identified from some of the poorest areas in Soweto, and culminate with lunch.
* Carnival City, will also host Mandela Day activities with charity organizations. They will hand-over R61 000 worth of kit to two academy football clubs and donate R53 000 worth of sewing machines and overlockers to women’s organization Zwelonke Women’s Group.
They wrap up the day at Wattville Simulation Center by handing out food parcels and cutting of the cake in celebration of Mandela’s birthday.
* Ahead of Mandela Day on Thursday, the Miss Earth South Africa, in conjunction with Fourways Farmers Market, Reliance Compost, Consol, UTI and Garnier SouthAfrica, planted 95 trees at Solwazi Primary School in Orange Farm.
The organisation decided to honour the former statesman by planting one tree for every year of his life. The project was hosted ahead of International Mandela Day, to coincide with the National Semi-Finalists’ Johannesburg trip, which saw all of the recently announced Green Glamazons in Gauteng, with just 6 weeks to go to the Gala Event.
Solwazi Primary School was founded just three years ago, and is nestled deep within Gauteng’s “forgotten township”, Orange Farm. The school, which has been formally adopted by the Miss Earth South Africa organisation, is without electricity and, until recently, was without running water as well, which made it impossible to sustain any trees. That, however, has all changed, largely thanks to the efforts of the Miss Earth South Africa organisation.
“One of the incredible teachers at Solwazi, Mrs Magwaza, has worked with us for years in Orange Farm and when she brought Solwazi Primary onto our radar there was no way we couldn’t help,” said Ella Bella, the Miss Earth South Africa’s Educational Officer.
“There wasn’t a single tree for the children to sit under, not so much as a blade of grass, and now they have 95 trees to choose from and soon they’ll have their very own sustainable food garden as well.”
Nelson Mandela has, throughout his life, inspired greatness in those with whom he comes into contact, and when Miss Earth South Africa National Director, Catherine Constantinides met him the affect was no less profound. “Meeting Tata inspired me in ways I cannot begin to explain; his life and his legacy motivate me each and every day, to be a better person, to touch people’s lives, to change the world,” Catherine explains.
Since being named Miss Earth South Africa in 2003, Constantinides has made humanitarian work a priority in her life, through her work in rural Cambodia, to her work in the townships of South Africa. Over the past decade, the organisation that was born of Constantinides’s dream to change the world has touched hundreds of thousands of lives and created sustainable change across South Africa.
With the assistance of Earth Outdoor Living Nursery and the Fourways Farmers Market, the Miss Earth South Africa will, over the course of the coming months, complete a full “green make over” at Solwazi Primary School.
In addition, the ladies and winners of this year’s leadership programme will return to Orange Farm to assist with classroom refurbishment at Solwazi.
The 2013 Miss Earth South Africa winners will be announced at a gala function on the 17th August at Tsogo Sun’s Montecasino ballroom.
If you would like to volunteer your time or services to the organisation and be a part of this initiative, please contact the Miss Earth South Africa organisation by emailing office@missearthsa.co.za.
For more, visit their website, www.missearthsa.co.za, follow Miss Earth South Africa on Twitter (@missearth_sa) or Like them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/missearthsa).
* Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula, Sport MEC in GP Lebogang Maile and other MECs will give their 67-minutes in honour of the world icon Nelson Mandela on July 18.
The Mandela Day Mandela Day programme at the Krematart Park in Eldorado Park Extension 2, is a partnership between the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa and the City of
Joburg.
Among others they will volunteer their services by painting the local Andries Meyer Old Age Home adjacent to the Krematart Park.
They’ll be joined by well-known celebrities and artists, Springboks, Netball and Bafana Bafana teams, soccer legends including the likes of Willington Manyathi, swimmers, staff from the partnering departments and the local Sports Council among others who’ll all be there to land their hand in improving the lives of the targeted communities.
