Staffers have Mandela Day in the bag

Wrapped up: Staffers in the Faculty of Humanities build sleeping bags from newspapers and plastic sheets.

Like many institutions and companies countrywide, the UCT community is participating in various outreach initiatives to commemorate Mandela Day.

Staff in the Faculty of Humanities dedicated their time to making sleeping bags for the homeless, demonstrated by inventor Jo Maxwell and fashioned out of newspapers, gathered from colleagues in the Communication and Marketing Department, and plastic sheets. The sleeping bags will be donated to the Claremont Night Shelter.

The Transformation Committee in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor will prepare food that will be distributed to children in Blikkiesdorp near Delft, in collaboration with representatives from the community. And staffers in the Faculty of Law are also collecting non-perishable foods for the Adonis Musati Project, which assists refugees and is named after the young Zimbabwean who died of starvation on the streets of Cape Town while waiting for his asylum papers.

"International Mandela Day today, July 18, honours former president and UCT honorary graduate Nelson Mandela, whose legacy is manifested in a spirit volunteerism and community service," said vice-chancellor Dr Max Price.

"These are words we're well familiar with at UCT, borne out in our socially responsive research thrusts and through the work of our students in various volunteer organisations, such as Ubunye and SHAWCO, which is one of the largest student volunteer organisations in Africa. I commend them for giving up 67 minutes today to make a different to our communities in need."