My 67 minutes

Well it was a little more than the 67 minutes we were asked to serve to celebrate Mandela Day, but it was well worth the five hours we spent at the Nancefield Primary School in Eldorado Park, one of the southwestern townships of Soweto.

Our assignment was to turn a former classroom into a new library with books donated by School Aid (school-aid.org), a UK based charity that provides educational materials to meet the needs of disadvantaged children.

The South African contact for School Aid in Johannesburg is our fearless leader Patti and she can be reached at pattiscales@gmail.com if you would like to donate money, help, donate money, volunteer, donate money, donate books, donate money, help deliver supplies to needy schools, or donate money. There were probably twelve of us who came to help Patti clean out the former classroom, set up the new library, and categorize and shelve the donated books. 

Patti's husband works for SASOL SPI, a business unit of the SASOL Corporation who organized an entire community service event at Nancefield. SASOL sent hundreds of employees as Mandela Day volunteers who built walkways and patios, landscaped gardens, painted and did all manner of handiwork to help improve the infrastructure of the school. It was quite a production! It was also really nice to work alongside the energetic SASOL employees as it added an air of excitement to the proceedings.
 

Patti is greeted by the Deputy Principal of Nancefield.

We had a lot of help from the students cleaning off the shelves and removing the Afrikaans textbooks. Afrikaans is no longer being taught in South African schools as English has now become the primary language. All the books donated by School Aid are in English.

Categorizing the non-fiction books by subject and the fiction alphabetically by author.

Stocking the shelves of the new library!










Thank you Patti, School Aid and SASOL for giving me the opportunity to celebrate my first Mandela Day with you. Make every day Mandela Day!