Casual Day team encourages SA to support Mandela Day

The over-arching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better - this is what Casual Day beneficiary organisations will be doing on Friday 6 September 2013, but it is never too early to start planning to dress up in the 2013 theme, which is Go Big!

"Mandela Day and Casual Day have this in common: both projects aim to empower communities everywhere. Casual Day seeks to be instrumental in seeing persons with disabilities being included fully in society as interdependent contributors to a better society," says Casual Day project leader Celeste Vinassa.

"Take action; inspire change; make every day a Mandela Day." This is the call to action of Mandela Day and individuals and organisations are free to participate in Mandela Day as they wish. Whether as an individual, community, business, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or a government department, all you have to do on 18 July is donate 67 minutes of your day to doing something good in any way you can. Nelson Mandela gave 67 years of his life to the struggle for social justice. Can you spare 67 minutes of yours to make Casual Day a success?

Go Big or go home

The Mandela Day campaign message is simple: Mr Mandela gave 67 years of his life fighting for the rights of humanity. All we are asking is that everyone gives 67 minutes of their time, whether it's supporting your chosen charity or serving your local community.

"This is why we are asking all South Africans to make a special effort to donate their R10 for a Casual Day sticker in honour of Nelson Mandela," says Vinassa.

Casual Day is the flagship project of the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities (NCPPDSA), a public benefit organisation mandated to improve education, accessibility and social inclusion for persons with disabilities. Last year Casual Day raised a record amount of R22.2 million.

Casual Day is in its 19th successful year of service to the community of persons with disabilities. "This year we aim to make a big, if not massive, impact with our Go Big campaign - so whether you wear big hair, big glasses, a big tie, big shoes, or just go big on the number of stickers you wear, anything goes, as long as it's big," says Vinassa.

To order marketing material for your Casual Day campaign, to find out what others are doing to prepare to Go Big, and link to Casual Day's social networks, go to www.casualday.co.za.

Leading retail group Edcon, is Casual Day's principal financial sponsor. Stickers will be available at all Edcon stores, which include the following brands: Edgars, Edgars ACTIVE, Red Square, Boardmans, CNA, Jet, JetMart and LEGIT. Stickers will also be available at Absa, Game stores and DionWired.

For further information, go to www.casualday.co.za.