Mandela Award focuses on conflict resolution

Dubai: The Nelson Mandela Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in South Africa, will recognise communities and groups in the Middle East that promote social cohesion and conflict resolution, said a senior official.

Achmat Dangor, Chief Executive of the foundation, who is on a visit to Dubai, said the Nelson Mandela Award for Social Cohesion will acknowledge ordinary groups and communities that will promote innovative programmes and ideas that encourage social cohesion through dialogue and reconciliation.

The global award will also have a special focus on the Middle East region.

"It will be a community version of the Nobel Prize but the difference would be no individual will qualify for the award but only groups," said Achmat.

He said the foundation was inspired to conceive the idea of such an award by a group called Bereaved Families Coalition consisting of ordinary Palestinians and Israelis who have lost loved ones in conflict.

"This group was formed by people who came together to bridge the cultural divide between the Israeli and Palestinians.

"And when they came to our office, we were stunned to see how these people, despite their governments' discouragement, are slowly forging links between the two communities. They asked us to intervene and we saw that we could also see some solution to solving the on-going conflict.

"This award, if negotiated in the right kind of circumstances; if locally managed and is transparent and non-partisan, can truly encourage innovative ideas for bridging the conflict between the two parties," said Dangor.

"The award consists of a modest sum of 100,000 rand (Dh36,734) which is significant for poor communities. More important, it is an incentive for them, and gives them a global exposure that will allow them to find other partners.

"So also, by linking them to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, they get the prestige that would stimulate more and more communities to emulate their work," he added.

He further explained that in South Africa, the award will annually recognise nine communities for their efforts towards social cohesion, which is characterised by material equity where the gulf between the poor and the rich is not huge, where there is greater distribution of wealth, equity in education where all people have equal opportunities and also works that value the differences in languages, cultures and ideologies in a multi-ethnic society by ensuring that they do not sink back into conflict.

Elaborating on the works and goals of the Foundation, Achmat said that it exists to propagate and perpetuate the legacy of Nelson Mandela who had a unique life from a rural country boy to a national hero freedom-fighter and the president.

"We use that example for the bondage-free generation, who do not have any idea about the struggles the past generation went through, and resort to violence. Even today their first resort to resolve a problem is conflict; in the face of an obstacle, when they do not get their way, they resort to conflict," he said.

"So out of the centre of memory, a library that archives the historic documents concerning the life of Nelson Mandela, is born a dialogue programme where we try to promote dialogue among people who face problems. We started of with focusing on Aids because it is a major problem facing our country and extend to other critical social issues," he said.

On the response received from the UAE, Achmat noted lots of interest were shown by prominent personalities and corporates and he is hopeful of materialising the award programme by mid next year.

"I have also come to know that there are many foundations that have similar programmes that promote inter-cultural dialogue and social cohesion in the Arab world, and we hope to cooperate with them in further domains of aid work," he added.

"And of course, one obvious reason why I am here is to find resources. If we have to maintain our independence and carry on our work by staying true to Nelson Mandela's ethos, we have to be financially independent because very often government fundings always come attached with strings," concluded Dangor.