67 minutes+ for Mandela Day

67 minutes+ for Mandela Day

Along with our own broadbased initiative, Be Part of A Miracle Trust, this year we joined Artist Proof Studio and celebrated the day with a visit to COPESSA (Community-based Prevention and Empowerment Strategies in South Africa), a multiple award-winning community based organisation whose reason for being is the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

The activity for the day was painting a 58m long outdoor mural in a recreational park that has library and aftercare facility for children in Protea North, Soweto. The area has a number of children who have unfortunately fallen victim to abuse and the park was created, alongside other initiatives such as therapy consultations with the victims, to help the children destress and just be children.

These aspirations for the use of the park have been achieved but now the park faces another problem, threatening its function as a facility children can use. Due to the park falling under the jurisdiction of Joburg City Parks, it is in essence, open to use to all members of society. The problem with such a model is that the members of the community have been using the space as a place to consume alcohol and at times for the use drugs. The detrimental effects of this cannot be over emphasized as a situation where children are allowed to witness this form of destructive behavior normalizes it to them, exposing them to the risk of replicating the behavior.

Our painting activity was a drop in the ocean in the war to allow the children to reclaim the park. The day was described as fun, memorable and rewarding by all parties involved and, we at Convergence Partners hope at the least, we have left our workforce inspired to take greater initiative in achieving the global mandate for the movement towards good.

The Convergence Partners team joined up for Mandela Day

About Mandela Day

In November 2009 the UN declared 18th July Mandela Day recognizing the contribution the former President made “to the struggle for democracy internationally and the promotion of a culture of peace throughout the world”. The customary manner to celebrate this momentous day, which also happens to be the former President’s birthday, involves members of society devoting 67 minutes of their time, one minute for every year of Nelson Mandela’s public service, to making small gestures of solidarity with humanity and a step towards the global movement for good.