The Mandela Rhodes Foundation: African Leadership Development
How the Mandela Rhodes Foundation came into being
The intention to establish The Mandela Rhodes Foundation was announced in February 2002 when The Rhodes Trust, as part of its centenary celebrations, entered into a partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and made a benefaction over 10 years.
Legacy of leadership, training, reconciliation, entrepreneurship and education
In 2003 the Foundation came into being as a full and equal partnership, drawing together the legacy of leadership and reconciliation embodied by Nelson Mandela with Cecil John Rhodes' legacy of entrepreneurship and education, to help build exceptional leadership capacity in Africa through the Mandela Rhodes Programmes.
These programmes are focussed on leadership training and leadership development to help build Africa through home-grown leaders.
In an address at Westminster on July 2 2003, The Mandela Rhodes Foundation Patron Nelson Mandela said:
'We have agreed to and support this joint initiative believing that the bringing together of these two names represents a symbolic moment in the closing of the historic circle ... We know with confidence that the work of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation will substantively contribute to a better life for the people of South Africa and further abroad on the African continent ... It speaks of a growing sense of global responsibility that in this second century of its operation the Rhodes Trust finds it appropriate to redirect some of its attention and resources back to the origins of (its) wealth.'
The Mandela Rhodes Foundation aims to give expression to the legacies of leadership, education and training, reconciliation and entrepreneurship, as stated in the Notarial Deed of Trust: 'Capacity building programmes to have maximum impact and sustainability ... Leadership programmes that by developing individual capacity in Africa will in turn create more capacity'.
