This is the first Mandela day since the beloved father of our nation passed away and it seems only fitting for everyone to put in a little extra effort to honour the great man’s legacy. It is, however not always easy to come up with ideas when your brain is slightly fried and you are dragging yourself towards the weekend so we thought we would help you with with a few suggestions for what you can do this Mandela day.

The great thing about the ideas suggested by Cape Town Magazine is that some of them are as simple as a ‘smile’, and require you to do nothing but put your cynical, grumpy facade to one side for the day.

So if you are in the donating kind of mood, There are lots of projects happening in which you can donate books to various schools and organisations to help better a child’s education.

Donate educational materials to Breadline Africa at the V&A Waterfront. Breadline Africa, an internationally registered charity based in South Africa, aims to better the lives of the less fortunate by converting old shipping containers into essential community structures, like schools, libraries and health clinics. The organisation has teamed up with The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy for the Mandela Month Container Activation, a drive hosted at Clock Tower Square at the V&A Waterfront that calls on citizens to donate educational and developmental materials, including books and toys, for children up to six years old.

If you aren’t going to make it to the Waterfront today, try something at a mall closer to you during your lunch hour…

Volunteer your time for the Operation Smile awareness campaign at local malls. This year, the folks at Operation Smile, an organisation that provides free surgeries to children and adults born with cleft lips and palates, will be setting up camp at various malls in the Western Cape to create awareness for the work that they do. Volunteers are needed to hand out flyers, assist people in signing-up to help at Operation Smile, decorate dolls and just spread the good word. There will also be a collection drive for mirrors, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, stationary and adult patient gowns. And, as if doing good wasn’t incentive enough, those who give their time will get a T-shirt for their services. Go to Southafrica.operationsmile.org for more information.
Operation Smile will be set up at Blue Route Mall in Tokai and in Stellenbosch and George.

If time is not your friend, and you really have none spare on this special day, try this one…

Say thank you. Make someone else’s day by simply saying ‘thank you’. It can be as easy as taking a security guard a cup of coffee, or helping your kids draw a thank you card for their teacher or librarian. Similarly, random acts of kindness never go unnoticed: give way to another car in traffic, offer your seat to someone when travelling on public transport, encourage a colleague at work – be kind in any way you can. These gestures may seem small, but the ripple has to start somewhere.

Check out the full list from Cape Town Magazine for more ideas and then get off your ass and do SOMETHING… ANYTHING! It is so easy. You have no excuse not to participate in this amazing tribute to Madiba’s legacy.