South Africa Swaps Bling for Charity on Mandela Day

[Peer Fischer]

South Africa swaps bling for charity on Mandela day

Breaking with their image of favouring bling over benevolence, thousands of middle-class South Africans are today expected to mark Nelson Mandela's 93rd birthday by heeding a call to spend an hour doing voluntary work.

Mandela Day was proclaimed for 18 July – the country's first post-apartheid president – by the United Nations in 2009 when the charitable foundation that bears his name came up with the idea of asking South Africans to devote 67 minutes of their day – one for each year the former president sacrificed to his country – to doing good works.

Cheesekids, founded in 2008 by 31-year-old Shaka Sisulu, the grandson of anti-apartheid heroes Walter and Albertina Sisulu, aims to kill the image that up-and-coming South Africans only care for designer labels and alloy wheels on cars. For this year's Mandela Day, Cheesekids aims to triple its intake of volunteers to nearly 7,000 in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban where worthy causes have been found that need hands-on work. The group organises meeting places, transport, sponsored green T-shirts and tools and uses radio stations and social networks to spread the word. As Mr Mandela turns 93, gardens will be dug, soup kitchens set up and clothes distributed.

The dynamic and apolitical network stands in sharp contrast to the better-known "black diamonds" who have given middle-class South Africans a bad name. "They are a completely different group of people," said Mr Noah. South African celebrity magazines regularly run features about "black diamonds" – often offspring of top politicians and others who have advanced through ruling party connections. At their parties, Johnny Walker Black Label is swilled by men in sharp suits and sushi is served on naked women's bodies. African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema is often linked to the "black diamond" set. Yesterday, as Cheesekids around the country were rolling up their sleeves, the opposition Democratic Alliance called for the tax authorities to audit Mr Malema's finances, after press reports that he was building a 16m rand (£1.4m) mansion in Sandown, Johannesburg.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...y-2315437.html