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From:TheBahamasWeekly.com Community
Nassau, Bahamas - The children of Urban Renewal’s summer programme learned more about Nelson Mandela yesterday than they ever had. Some heard his name for the first time. Sandals Foundation volunteers from Sandals Royal Bahamian sat with the kids for 67 minutes and more at Urban Renewal’s office on Baillou Hill Road, helping them to understand Nelson Mandela’s impact on South Africa’s society and, by extension, free societies throughout the world. The children were also shown a short documentary of Mandela’s life. Every year on Mandela’s birthday, individuals and organisations across the world are asked to spend 67 minutes of their time helping people to recognize their own ability to have a positive effect on society. This is to commemorate the 67 years Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa and Anti-Apartheid activist, dedicated to the fight for human rights. This year, the Sandals Foundation has undertaken outreach activities, impacting approximately 470 children in Jamaica, St. Lucia, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Antigua, the Bahamas and Grenada. Last year, the foundation reached out to over 300 children. During a writing exercise 13-year-old Shantell Merone expressed this about Mandela: “Thanks for helping your country and others have rights for blacks, and for how you suffered in jail for many years. Also, thank you for showing us that violence was not the way for solving problems. “Thank you for being a strong, dedicated individual and proving to us no matter what we believe in as a person, to never give up because one day it will pay off.”
Sandals Foundation volunteers surprised the children with ice cream and cookies to round out the day, while helping them to hone the letters, poems and biographies they were writing to and about Mandela. This Mandela day was significant as it was the first since his death on December 5, 2013. “Nelson Mandela is important because his words helped to free the black people,” wrote 9-year-old ivoine Strachan.
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