Durban’s Deputy Mayor, Mrs Fawzia Peer has launched a project to record the histories and honour unsung heroes who have performed yeoman service to the community.
At a meeting, which she hosted in the Mayor’s Parlour, City Hall, Mrs Peer said that it was imperative that the histories of people who made great sacrifices to serve had to be recorded for posterity. “We must also honour them and it is my intention to have a major function where each of our unsung heroes would be presented with a special award. While the final details are yet to be worked out, we have started work to identify these luminaries who have been forgotten,” said Mrs Peer.
The first step is to launch a cultural organization, which will undertake the project. The next move will be to identify the unsung heroes, men women. This will be followed with each one being interviewed and their journeys will be reduced to writing. A total of 16 people attended the very first meeting. Most of them affiliated with a host of volunteer public service organisations. It was agreed that a draft constitution would be prepared and presented to the Committee at its very next meeting on March 20.
Also at the meeting was businesswoman, Mrs Faranah Osman who said that there are many people within the community who have given selfless service, but who have been ignored when it came to recognizing their contribution. “These luminaries continue to work to bring comfort, change and leadership among so many. Let us also not forget that there are many Muslim women who are forgotten because society expects them to be passive. We need to highlight these people or history will forget our contribution and our generation will go down as a people who did not did not make a contribution,” said Mrs Osman.
The hunt is now on for the unsung heroes and they need not have made a contribution to the liberation struggle but have worked tirelessly in various fields of human endeavor like public health, economics, education, philanthropy, science, social welfare and the professions.
Names and contact details of prospective unsung heroes can be sent to [email protected]