Nelson Mandela International Day
Nelson Mandela International Day, also known as Mandela Day, is held on July 18 each year.The day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009.
Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.
The day remembers Mandela’s achievements in working towards conflict resolution, democracy, human rights, peace, and reconciliation and to follow his call to “make of the world a better place.”
Nelson Mandela International Day 2018 marks 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918).
The Nelson Mandela Foundation is dedicating this year’s Mandela Day to Action Against Poverty, honoring Nelson Mandela’s leadership and devotion to fighting poverty and promoting social justice for all.
On November 10, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring July 18 as “Nelson Mandela International Day”.
The first Mandela Day was launched in New York on July 18, 2009, but the UN’s resolution to declare the day occurred later that year.
Some Important Facts about Nelson Mandela:
-Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in the village of Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape, on 18 July 1918.
-His mother was Nonqaphi Nosekeni and his father was Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo.
-He served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.
-He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial.
– In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison.
– He also won the Nobel Peace Prize, together with another former South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk, in 1993.
-He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, and described as the “Father of the Nation”.
