Pretoria - Despite all the gloom and doom of load shedding and Rand Water supply challenges, Mandela Day presents an opportunity to celebrate the work ordinary South Africans do to uplift the lives of underprivileged communities.
This was said by Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink, who took time out from his busy schedule yesterday to celebrate the day by planting 67 spekboom plants at the Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre in Mamelodi.
He applauded the selfless work done by the centre and also talked to learners about the importance of preserving the environment.
Later in the day, Brink made a second stop at Pat-rico old age home based in Hammanskraal township and looking after more than 100 elderly people.
There, he led stakeholders to hand over a few items, which included groceries, to assist the centre in the celebration of Mandela Day.
Pat-rico founder Patricia Rikhotso expressed gratitude for a generous gesture shown by Brink and his team.
While out in Mamelodi, Brink responded to a question by those who wanted to know why he was preoccupied with charity work and not attending to sewerage problems, power and water outages.
“Of course, there are pressing issues, and of course there are service delivery problems to attend to. But this is a very important opportunity to celebrate not what the government is necessarily doing but what communities are doing. What civil society is doing and what NGOs are doing,” he said.
He said he was delighted to hear that the centre has a good relationship with the Gauteng provincial government “because this centre is doing amazing work”.
“Let’s use Madiba Day despite the gloom, the doom and the load shedding and the water problems with Rand Water to celebrate the wonderful, vigorous, lively civil society that we have and the interests of the organisations such as these in our communities,” he said.
Brink concluded his day at the Tshwane Leadership Foundation at Burgers Park in the Pretoria CBD.
The foundation is a non-governmental organisation supporting vulnerable groups and people in need of assistance, such as abused women and girls, the elderly, children, youths and the homeless people.
Pretoria News