NELSON MANDELA INTERNATIONAL DAY - Let's do good for 67
Published:Wednesday | July 18, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter
Today Jamaicans join other nationalities in celebrating Nelson Mandela International Day.
South African High Commissioner to Jamaica Mathu Joyini explained that the day is all about doing good for others, for 67 minutes.
"The principle is that Nelson Mandela spent 67 years of his life dealing with issues of social justice across different issues. We can afford 67 minutes that we can try and emulate the principles that he believed in," she explained.
Mandela Day was conceived by the Nelson Mandela Foundation in July 2009, and officially adopted by the United Nations in November that year. Jamaica's theme is 'Take action, inspire and make every day a Mandela Day'.
Joyini stressed that persons can do something simple.
"You can start in your own house. Ask yourself, do I go to the old-age home around the corner or do I go to a children's hospital? Of course corporate people, they can do more." In her homeland, the day is fast becoming a national phenomenon.
"It is growing. It's something we have used to rally support among South Africans to come together. Many things bring us together and one of them is Mandela Day. The energy around it is incredible," she said.
The focus for Jamaica is children and the high commission, along with Crayons Count creator Deika Morrison, Children's Advocate Diahann Gordon-Harrison and others, came up with 67 things to do and sent the list to different organisations for them to choose. Joyini noted that the child focus was the reason they asked Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to be patron.
While the high commission will not be hosting a specific event, Joyini said she would be going around to the various projects, and doing television and radio interviews.
"So that those who were not aware, they can still find 67 minutes before midnight. I'm sure they can still find something to do."
She said that having seen it work in South Africa, they wanted to test it here.
Jamaicans' love for Mandela
"Plus we think that with the love that Jamaicans have for Mandela, let us leverage that name. I would not be surprised if Jamaica was to be one of the few countries that will be celebrating the day on the scale that it is," she said. Entities with reach across Jamaica and the diaspora like Jamaica National Building Society will help spread the message outside the Corporate Area.
"My bias would be rural areas. But starting it this year and to give it visibility, I had to liaise with companies in the corporate (world) who are visible. It would mean me going and seeing individuals one-by-one," she said, noting her schedule simply doesn't allow. The Mandela Foundation's hope is to build a global community for good.
"My hope is that Jamaicans adopt this day and use it as much as they can because it has the potential for exactly that. If you replicate this across the globe, I think it's very powerful (because) it's about a cause higher than us."