Mandela Day is a day when citizens around the country reflect on Nelson Mandela’s unforgettable legacy. We take the time to celebrate his life, his leadership and his devotion to humanity. Positive change was the gift left to all of us by Nelson Mandela, but in order to make his a living legacy, we all have to devote time and effort to making our country, and the world, a better place.
This Mandela Day the team at Ocean Odyssey chose to take part in two collective efforts which are close to our hearts. Once again, we teamed up with the amazing Honorary Rangers from SANparks and, together with an amazing group of other local volunteers, we set out to clean up some of the litter that tarnishes the face of our beloved Knysna. We chose to focus our clean-up efforts along several main thoroughfares in town and areas where the trash gets washed into the town’s storm water drains and then into our estuary. The issue of plastic pollution becomes extremely palpable when taking part in a clean up of this nature. An excessive amount of straws, plastic cutlery, plastic bottles and many other items were found during the clean up. Items which are used and carelessly discarded and sadly, often ending up washing out into the ocean. In 1 ½ hours, we collected 20 bags of trash! We implore all residents of Knysna to be mindful of not using too much single use plastic and if you do, don’t litter!!
Our next stop was a visit to the Loeriehof Retirement Home in Knysna where we spent a wonderful afternoon hanging out with the residents. It is always such an honour to get to spend some quality time with them and to spoil them with tea and delicious sweet treats. We played Sudoku, did some relaxing and therapeutic adult colouring-in art and had a good kuier. It was a special day indeed.
The Ocean Odyssey Team would like to thank all those that took time out to make a difference on Mandela Day. We really appreciate your efforts and salute you.
