{{Although critically ill and may still be confined to his Pretoria hospital bed on life-support, global celebrations and charity events will mark Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday, according to agency reports.}}
As parts of the activities marking the landmark event, volunteers will spend 67 minutes on hundreds of community upliftment projects – a minute for every year of his activism.
Born July 18 in 1918 and imprisoned 46 years later, Mandela went on to lead black South Africans’ struggle for equal rights with whites.
He was convicted of treason in 1964 and spent the next 27 years in jail.
After his release, Mandela skillfully negotiated with the apartheid minority government to end whites-only rule.
He became South Africa’s first black president after all-race elections in 1994 and led reconciliation in the deeply divided country.
But his hospitalisation for a recurring lung infection and bitter infighting among his relatives have tempered the festive spirit.
The United Nations in 2010 declared the Nobel peace laureate’s birthday Mandela Day – to encourage people around the world to do just over an hour of good deeds.
However, a report by Agence France Presse (AFP) yesterday indicated that global celebrities have supported the campaign in memory of Mandela’s 67 years of political activism.
“I will also be giving my 67 minutes to make the world a better place, one small step at a time,” British business magnate, Richard Branson, pledged in a recorded message.
Tomorrow, children in schools around South Africa will start their classes singing “Happy Birthday” to the former statesman. Celebrities have committed to painting schools, handing out clothes to impoverished kids and countless similar projects.
The inauguration of the Nelson Mandela Legacy Bridge is scheduled at the icon’s birth village, Mvezo, in the rural Eastern Cape province.
A science-specialisation high school bearing his name is also due to be opened.
In the United States, meanwhile, 17 cities have planned various activities Thursday.
On Saturday, Australian city, Melbourne, will hold a concert featuring local and African artists, while a music festival later this year in Norway will promote equality in schools.
Mandela’s peace-making spirit has won him worldwide respect.
“Never before in history was one human being so universally acknowledged in his lifetime as the embodiment of magnanimity and reconciliation as Nelson Mandela,” archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel peace laureate, said.
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