Radio fund-raiser on Madiba Day

702’s Stephen Grootes with Tokyo Sexwale after the three-hour live fund-raiser for the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

In celebration of Madiba Day, Sexwale, who is a board member of the NMF, approached the station to help him raise awareness for this worthy cause. Talk Radio 702 dedicated three hours of airtime, during which time Sexwale called a number of prominent South Africans and asked them to pledge funds for the foundation.

Simulcast to Cape Town

The initiative was broadcast live on Saturday morning on Joburg's Talk Radio 702 between 7am and 10am and simulcast to 567 CapeTalk in Cape Town.

Listener response was said to have been phenomenal with a total pledge amount of just over R2.2 million, excluding individual pledges that were directed to the NMF.

Big pledges

Some of the big pledges included R250 000 from Dr Richard Friedland of Netcare. Business leaders, such as CEO of MIC Paul Nkuna, Dr Irvin Khoza, Robert Gumede, Judy Dlamini, Dirk Ackerman and other business and community leaders called in with their pledges.

"It is such a privilege for us to be able to dedicate our airwaves to such a worthy case and it completes our programming initiatives that were put in place to honour Madiba," said Talk Radio 702 station manager, Pheladi Gwangwa.

Encouraged listeners to volunteer

"The station has run a number of initiatives leading up to Madiba Day. We created a forum where we matched volunteers with charity organisations. We covered the Mandela exhibition in New York and held an outside broadcast at the apartheid museum to highlight the local Mandela exhibition. Throughout the week we also encouraged our listeners to volunteer their time this weekend to charitable causes and help those less fortunate."

Gwangwa continued to say that Saturday's fund-raiser was an extension of the station's commitment to help improve the lives of those less fortunate.

"We are proud to have made a contribution to the Nelson Mandela Foundation by providing our platform to challenge big business and community leaders to pledge their contributions and, in turn, help make a difference in our country."