The Chief Executive Officer of the National Heritage Council, Advocate Sonwabile Mancotywa has praised members of the Methodist Church in Ludeke village in Mbizana, Eastern Cape, for preserving the church.
The council and the church held a memorial service for Mama Winnie.
It was in this Methodist Church of the Ludeke Circuit in Bizana that maWinnie Makizela-Mandela tied the knot with Nelson Mandela in June 1958.
Mancotywa has reiterated that the church and Mama Winnie’s home in Mbhongweni village will be refurbished and a request will be made that they be declared national heritage sites.
“The members of this church have done what in the history of heritage protocols of this country has never been done, where the community itself takes its own initiative. As you can see, they’ve left this church or this structure and built another structure next to this one. By so doing they were conscious and fully aware that this structure is important because this is where Mama and Tata got married and all other luminaries who were part of that wedding including Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu.”
Executive Mayor of Alfred Nzo District Municipality Sixolile Mehlomakhulu says the development of the church and the home of Mama Winnie will create job opportunities.
“That will bring development to the people of Mbizana, to the people of Alfred Nzo, that will bring forth to the community of Mbizana that they have been taken care of. And as a district, we will make sure that we work together to make that thing a reality.”
The council says she was the first woman to receive the Ubuntu Honour conferred to her in 2011 by the National Heritage Council of South Africa for her exemplary expression of the values of Ubuntu in her life.
Only a few outstanding citizens of the globe were recipients of the Ubuntu Honour in the past years: Nelson Mandela (2006), Kenneth Kaunda (2007), Fidel Castro (2008), Boutros Boutros-Ghali and King Sabata Dalindyebo (2009), Miriam Makeba (2013), Julius Nyerere (2014) and Mfengu Makhalima (2017).
Click below for more on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s death:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/sabc-news-online/book-of-condolence-ripwinniemandela/1737025163002318/
