67 Minutes in honour of Nelson Mandela
On Monday (18th July) our former president, the inimitable Nelson Mandela, celebrated his 93rd birthday. The world marked the special day with the “67-Minute-Volunteer-Service” campaign, which served to honour this Nobel Peace prize winner’s 67 years in service to others by doing the same.
The HESC staff came up with an innovative idea to do their bit for Madiba’s birthday initiative.
There are 14 labourers that work tirelessly on a daily basis to ensure that the Centre is well maintained at all times. The idea was to treat these people – some of whom have worked alongside us for more than 10 years - like visitors and show them just what HESC does, because none of them really understood the kind of work we do here.
First we ushered them into the viewing room where we showed them the introductory DVD. They sat enthralled as Lente Roode (founder) explained the origins of HESC. Once outside again we all sang happy birthday to our stately former president, and then we took a photo of everyone. You’d have through Christmas arrived early for these humble folk, so happy were they at being given the opportunity to sing for Tata Madiba.
Thereafter we all climbed aboard the waiting game vehicles and went on an informative and fun-filled tour of the Centre. The guides tried as best they could to explain to everyone what it is that HESC does for the environment, and how the animals arrived with us in the first place.
They found the tour both interesting and informative, and there was lots of laughter emanating from the vehicles as we made our way to the various enclosures.
So in a nutshell, we spent our 67 minutes uplifting our community. Click here to see more photos of this heartwarming event.