Amandela! – Don’t mess up this Mandela Day
· Citizen
I decided to make Mandela Day more deliberate this year.
I, like you, have in the past been pulled into food parcel packing or spent time at care centres. But this time, I threw myself into a baby supplies collection drive. The difference this year, we did it as a family.
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So as we cleaned out clothes cupboards and hit the shops for formula and nappies, it gave us an opportunity to share with our kids the importance of giving.
For my older child, it also became a lesson in inequality and poverty, and how these issues must be overcome for us to truly reach our potential as a nation.
Inequality and poverty come in so many forms in our daily lives, and even a small act of inclusion, sharing, encouragement, and empowerment can get the ball rolling.
Look out for those who are sitting alone at break, share what you have with those who may not have much, stand up for those who are being bullied, or who are being silenced.
Help those you work or study with to help them understand what they are being taught, tell them you believe in them and give them the confidence they need to complete a task.
Kindness and social awareness are small seeds planted in young minds that, with constant watering through serving others, will help them make a change in their communities.
What are leaders doing to address inequality?
Mandela Day, and its call to eradicate poverty and inequality, has been around for 17 years, but the fact that this year’s theme includes the line that “It’s STILL in our hands” to combat these social ills points to not only the constant effort needed but a damning admission of constant failure.
The change starts with each of us, but those in power also need to lead the way.
While we are cleaning out our cupboards, the president, his ministers, and their parties and departments need to clean out their rot. Cronyism and the race for the trough have seen cadre over caring, and selfishness over service.
While we have our eyes fixed on building bridges of unity, those in power are blind to the failings that put lives at risk and drive division between us.
This week, several people were injured, and many were left trapped under the rubble, when a wall fell down at a church in KwaZulu-Natal. It was a tragedy that, unfortunately, highlighted what an expert has long pointed out as dangerous gaps in training and supervision.
We, as a church, community, and nation, will continue to be at risk of collapse if we constantly choose shortcuts. We cannot take a shortcut while building a wall, transporting young lives to school, or holding those in power to account – and then wonder why tragedy always seems to follow us.
Some can try running from the problem, blaming others when they themselves may also be to blame, but we cannot address our country’s issues without being deliberate about addressing inequality and poverty.
And, for those in power, that does not mean appointing a corruption-stained friend like Dina Pule to oversee R300 billion meant to help those in poverty, or a former Joburg mayor accused of “purging the poor“, Parks Tau, to oversee economic equality.