South Africa on Wednesday marked 100 years since Nelson Mandela’s birth, with Barack Obama hosting a youth leadership project as Archbishop Desmond Tutu led emotional tributes to the late anti-apartheid icon.
Mandela’s birthday on July 18 is celebrated annually around the world with charitable works, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation called for people to “take action and inspire change” in his name on the centenary year.
In Johannesburg, Obama told 200 young people attending a leadership course that he has set up, how Mandela had been a key inspiration in his life.
“Most people around the world think of Mandela as an older man, with hair like mine,” he joked.
“What people of course don’t recall is that he started as a very young man — your age — trying to liberate his country….
Source: Seychelles News Agency
