Insurance giant Sanlam gave the African National Congress and New National Party one million rand each at the request of former presidents Nelson Mandela and F W de Klerk, Mandela said on Friday.
Speaking at Nelson Mandela House in Johannesburg, Mandela said he was working together with his predecessor F W de Klerk to raise funds and they were approaching big firms for funding.
Mandela said De Klerk had told him that they should embark on progressive projects that ”will build a better South Africa”.
”When we go around asking for funding, people ask me why do I associate myself with De Klerk. I always tell them that people change,” Mandela told the staff and clients of F C B Harlow Butler. The firm, which trades as Icap, presented him with one-million rand towards his foundation’s rural schools development programme.
Mandela, who expected to see De Klerk at the presentation, told the delegates that ”I will communicate with De Klerk and he will tell me why he was not here”.
On HIV/Aids, Mandela said South Africans should fight the stigma. He then told a story about a family that he visited while in Limpopo Province.
He said he was told about three children who had lost their parents to HIV/Aids. The eldest was eight and the youngest two. He then requested to see the children and ”at the time community members were singing revolutionary songs and they accompanied me to the hut”.
”I went inside the house and stayed with the children for about 30 minutes. When I got out, all the people who accompanied me did not walk beside me anymore. They walked fast.
”I also walked fast to reach them and I could see they were running away from me because I went to speak to the children.
”They also stopped singing the revolutionary songs.”
Mandela said: ”We must fight the stigma”. – Sapa