WALKING IN MANDELA'S FOOTSTEPS

April 2008

The Donald Woods Foundation launched its first ever "Qunu ~ Miller Mission Challenge" when South Nottingham College students ran 34 kms in relay to highlight the hardship endured by people living in rural areas like Mbashe, who have to walk long distances to access healthcare. This route retraced Mandela's walk (aged 7) with his mother in 1925 from Qunu to Miller Mission to see Dr Lex Soga. Next to the government-built Soga Clinic at Miller Mission, the Donald Woods Foundation has completed a R210k refurbishment of a crumbling building which now serves as an HIV Clinic with a thriving Support Group. Dr Soga was also the doctor in charge at the birth of Donald Woods in Mbashe.

The Foundation's partnership with the college's "Balls to Poverty" programme began at Hobeni on Saturday 29 March 2008 with the distribution of 600 footballs, the building of a football pitch, and a match against the local side "Hungry Lion" in front of a crowd of 750 people. This is part of a much wider community-building programme to integrate young people through sport and other initiatives. Further matches and pitch-building took place at eLalini, Hobeni Junior School, Lower Manganyela, eKunene and Cwebe.

This programme is not aimed as a one-off event, but as part of a wider community development programme which will extend way beyond the 2010 Football World Cup, and merely form one component of the Donald Woods Foundation's wider schools programme, which targets the whole-scale development of over 100 schools in the Mbashe region.