Former president Nelson Mandela has invited a group of the world’s wealthiest people to travel to South Africa in April next year as part to raise funds for disadvantaged students in the Eastern Cape.
In the wake of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in August, where issues relating to global poverty and development were on the agenda, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Rhodes University decided to combine forces in a global fund-raising drive to support education in the Eastern Cape, university representative Linda Burton said on Friday.
Mandela’s guests will visit Rhodes University and some of the university’s outreach projects in the province as part of a two-week tour of some of the country’s top tourist destinations.
The tour will end with a gala dinner in Cape Town hosted by Mandela.
Rhodes University chancellor and chairman of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Professor Jakes Gerwel, said Mandela was offering a group of important individuals an ”unique opportunity to make a real difference in a part of the world where poverty is endemic.
”We greatly welcome this initiative and hope in this way to build bridges across national and class divides on a global scale.” – Sapa