[full]Little is known of Nelson Mandela’s eldest child, Thembekile. So little that Thembekile’s daughter, Ndileka, has only one picture of her father, which she keeps at her bedside.
That same picture now appears on promotional material for the Thembekile Mandela Foundation, which was launched yesterday morning at the former president’s Houghton, Johannesburg, home.
Ndileka said she had never lost hope in life, never given in to despair, even though her father was killed in a car crash when she was only four.
“I have this picture in my room and I talk to him [in the picture] every day,” she said yesterday. “Even though I was really young when he died, I know I was daddy’s little girl.
“There are moments in my life when I wished he were here, including when my children [Thembela and Pumla] were born.”
She said she wanted to keep his memory alive by launching the Thembekile Mandela Foundation. It was to have been established in 2012 but Madiba’s bouts of illness put paid to that.
She said the foundation would focus on education and health.
The idea came to her when she visited her grandfather’s old school, Clarkebury High, in Eastern Cape.
“When I knew I was going to do this I asked him to guide me and help me make the right choices, even when choosing trustees.”
Madiba’s death has still not sunk in for Ndileka, who said that in the past three years she spent “four or five days a week with him”.
“There’s a void in my life . I have times still when I break down. I am learning to live with it.
“We [mostly] miss his amazing sense of humour.
“Coming to [the Houghton] house always brings me to tears.”[/full]