Mandela Through Their Eyes

A proud moment for the OCF heART Club

As Mandela Month draws to a close, we’re looking back at a special moment from 2022, when children from the OCF heART Club at Westlake Primary School were given an opportunity to celebrate Madiba through their own creativity.

The Centre for Early Childhood Development invited children to create portraits for Madiba: Our Children’s Champion — a book celebrating Nelson Mandela and his legacy.

Christiane Savoia took the challenge to OCF’s free weekly art classes at Westlake Primary.

The brief was simple. Every child worked from the same two photographs of Mandela and references of his famously colourful shirts. Using only basic materials — pencil, wax crayons, watercolours and kokis on A4 card, they had just four hours to create their own interpretation of Madiba.

And something remarkable happened.

All 12 artworks submitted by the OCF heART Club were selected for the front cover of the book.

Several appeared again inside its pages.

The children’s artwork was exhibited at the book launch, where the young artists attended alongside their school principal and each received their own copy. Their portraits were later exhibited at Blue Route Mall during Mandela Month.

For children participating in a free community art programme, seeing their work published, exhibited and celebrated publicly was an unforgettable achievement.

Why moments like this matter

The heART Club is about much more than teaching children how to draw or paint.

It gives young people an opportunity to create, express themselves, develop confidence and discover what they are capable of.

Sometimes all a child needs is the opportunity to try.

On this occasion, 12 children were given that opportunity — and all 12 made the cover.

“Let us remind ourselves that it is ordinary people… that make the world a special place.”
— Nelson Mandela, 2008

Help us create more opportunities like this.