When I was 17, I left Canada to spend a year in Johannesburg.
I had grown up in downtown Toronto, a city that taught me to embrace and love multiculturalism and diversity. But it was that year in South Africa that I spent living with a British South African family and then a Zulu family in Soweto that changed my life.
I attended local schools, rode minibus taxis and moved about with the freedom of a teenager out to change the world.
I experienced a society still deeply divided, still struggling with injustice and fear. But I also found a nation of passionate people, both black and white, committed to building a better society.
Over that year, every conversation I had seemed to revolve around the impact of Nelson Mandela. His lifelong struggle made us believe that change was possible. His willingness to forgive showed us that if we dig deep enough, we can overcome even the worst injustices. That we can overcome hate.
His wonderful heart, and that classic smile and “Madiba shuffle,” taught us that to lose joy was to lose all.
When I left South Africa to complete my final year of high school in Toronto, I found myself far less interested in sports and the usual high school activities.
I got involved in the anti-war movement, opposing the war in Iraq. I started marching and chanting and organizing. And I met Jack Layton, then an NDP leadership candidate, who happened to share the same birthday as Mandela (July 18), who asked me to join him on his project to build a better Canada.
In the years since, I’ve returned to South Africa and later Ghana to study and work on poverty issues.
Looking back now, I can’t help but think of the impact Mandela had on my life. But more importantly, I think about Mandela’s impact on a generation of South Africans still grappling with rampant inequality that has now lost a hero and patron saint.
Over the years I had the honour of meeting Madiba three times: twice in South Africa and once in Toronto. His dignity and genuine warmth, especially when children were near, was a marvel.
The last time I saw him was at the 2007 annual meeting of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund in Johannesburg. (I still have a cherished out-of-focus photo of the two of us together.) He was older and his face bore the marks of years of imprisonment and struggle, but that spark in his eyes was still there.
Joe Cressy is director of campaigns and community outreach at the Stephen Lewis Foundation.
