CAPE TOWN – They remember life under apartheid, the day Nelson Mandela walked free and voting in South Africa’s first democratic election.
Today, many of those same older persons are quietly raising grandchildren, supporting multigenerational households on a stretched state pension with little support and limited access to older persons services.
For more than 60 years, women-led non-profit organisation Ikamva Labantu has walked alongside older persons in Cape Town’s township communities. Through older person clubs and the Western Cape’s only home-based care service dedicated to homebound elders in township communities, the organisation has witnessed both the extraordinary contribution older persons continue to make and the growing challenges they face.
Our elders helped carry South Africa through one of the most significant periods in our history.
This Mandela Day, Ikamva Labantu is inviting South Africans to spend 67 minutes listening to the people who lived the history that shaped our democracy. It’s annual 67 Gogos Mandela Day event brings together elders from township communities with corporate partners and members of the public in interactive beading circles. While hands are busy beading bracelets, a space is held for an intergenerational dialogue about apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s release, democracy and the hopes for our new South Africa.
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“Our elders helped carry South Africa through one of the most significant periods in our history,” says Ishrene Davids, director of Ikamva Labantu. “Many are still carrying our country today. They are raising grandchildren, holding families together and strengthening their communities, often while facing poverty, ill health and isolation themselves. Mandela Day is an opportunity not only to honour their stories, but to ask whether we are honouring them.”
Stretching their limits
That question has never been more relevant. Approximately 38% of South African children are being raised by grandparents. Across township communities, older persons are stretching their limited Older Persons Grant to provide food, stability, and love to grandchildren. They struggle to access support in our townships due to mobility issues and lack of accessible public transport.
For one day each year, South Africans are encouraged to dedicate 67 minutes to serving others in honour of Nelson Mandela’s legacy. This year, Ikamva Labantu hopes those minutes will also become an opportunity to listen, to hear stories that cannot be found in history books, to reflect on how far South Africa has come, and to recognise the generation whose resilience helped make democracy possible.
Our work is built on the foundational believe that ordinary people can make extraordinary impact when they choose to act.
The legacy of Mandela is found in the extraordinary people who endured apartheid, believed in a different future and continue, decades later, to quietly hold families and communities together. Founded in 1963, Ikamva Labantu (“The Future of the People”) partners with township communities to build stronger futures through community-led solutions and by empowering local leadership.
Today, Ikamva Labantu’s work focuses on two flagship programmes: strengthening early childhood development and supporting the health, dignity and independence of older persons. The programmes speak to the fact that township communities are not peripheral to the future of our country, but rather central to it.
“Our work is built on the foundational belief that ordinary people can make an extraordinary impact when they choose to act. We support this extraordinary impact and encourage others to join this movement to build a brighter future for our nation,” says Davids.
The event will be taking place at the Ikamva Labantu Living Legacy Centre, Cape Town, on Friday, 17 July. Learn more at Ikamva.org.za
