Note to Correspondents

Nelson Mandela Exhibit ‘Take Action! Inspire Change’ Opens

 

at United Nations Headquarters 12 July

 

For 67 years, Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity — as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.

This year on 18 July — Nelson Mandela’s ninety-third birthday — the United Nations is joining the call by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to ask everyone, everywhere to devote just 67 minutes of their time to helping others, as a way to mark Nelson Mandela International Day.

An interactive exhibition, entitled “Take Action! Inspire Change”, opens to the public on Tuesday, 12 July, in the Main Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby.  The exhibit is an initiative of the United Nations Department of Public Information to highlight this call to action in honour of Mr. Mandela’s service to humanity.

The exhibit provides the visitor with unique insight into the work and legacy of Mr. Mandela, through audio presentations of interviews with key political figures at the time of Mr. Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa and during his presidency, as well as photo and video footage during that period and beyond.

Visitors are invited to make their own personal pledge to devote 67 minutes of their time to public service and “make every day a Mandela Day”.  Pledges and messages submitted via the exhibit will be forwarded to Mr. Mandela at the conclusion of the showing.

To find out more about Nelson Mandela International Day and see the audiovisual materials online, visit www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay.  To see people’s personal pledges, visit www.facebook.com/mandelaintlday.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen, tel.:  +1 212 963 8531, e-mail:  arnesen@un.org; or Liza Wichmann, tel.:  +1 212 963 0089, e-mail:  wichmann@un.org; or visit the website at www.un.org.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record