JULY 16- Global celebrations and charity events will mark Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday on Thursday. Although the critically ill anti-apartheid leader is confined to his Pretoria hospital bed on life-support, volunteers will spend 67 minutes on hundreds of community upliftment projects — a minute for every year of his activism, said a report.
The United Nations in 2010 declared the Nobel peace laureate’s birthday Mandela Day — to encourage people around the world to do just over an hour of good deeds. Global celebrities have supported the campaign in memory of Mandela’s 67 years of political activism.
According to reports, children in schools around South Africa on Thursday will start their classes singing “Happy Birthday” to the former South African president. Celebrities have committed to painting schools, handing out clothes to impoverished kids and countless similar projects.
Earlier on July 14, former president Thabo Mbeki has said that Nelson Mandela may be discharged from hospital soon to recuperate at home.
The prediction about Mandela leaving the hospital was made by Thabo Mbeki as he gave a memorial lecture for the African National Congress on Saturday, reported the South African radio news service Eyewitness News.
Mandela has been hospitalized for more than five weeks for a recurring lung infection, sparking an outpouring of support in South Africa and internationally. Friends who have visited him say he is on life support in the form of mechanical ventilation.
The most recent official update on his health said Mandela was in critical but stable condition. But both Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, and President Jacob Zuma have said recently that Mandela is responding to treatment.
The anti-apartheid hero spent 27 years in prison before becoming South Africa’s first black president in 1994. He turns 95 on Thursday.
Mbeki was Mandela’s key deputy and succeeded him as South Africa’s president in 1999.
INDIA TODAY
