March 9, 2025, 5am MDT
Initially, Ndaba Mandela, who has not influenced the history of his grandfather’s world and the role he will play in his life, was seven years old when he first met his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, who was released from prison after nearly 30 years of imprisonment.
“They never discussed this guy (Nelson Mandela) in our house. We couldn’t mention Mandela’s name, so we never heard of him in a long time,” Ndaba Mandela spoke to listeners around the world at Rowstech 2025.
In his virtual keynote, Ndaba Mandela shared fragments of his experiences and life lessons he learned while being raised by his grandfather in the years after his release. The virtual address for Ndaba Mandela was published on Rootstech.org on March 5th.
“Biger characters than creatures”
Ndaba Mandela explained that, near the beginning of his address, his admiration for him quickly grew, even if his grandfather’s knowledge had been renewed.
“I began to realize that my grandfather was bigger than the real thing and that was so amazing to me,” he said.
A few years later, after Mandela took care of his grandfather, he soon became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, but he began to develop personal connections with him.
“‘ndaba, your father had no chance to go to university, so I’ll send him to university,” Mandela recalled what his grandfather told him when he arrived at his home in northern Johannesburg, South Africa. “…You’ll be with me while he’s in college. I’ll take care of you.” And that’s how I moved with my grandfather. I stayed with him until the end. ”
Lessons from my grandfather
Now, more than a decade after his grandfather’s death, Ndaba Mandela told listeners that it was a personal relationship he had built with his grandfather, a life lesson that spurred him to become his own leader.
At one point, Mandela remembered, and his grandfather approached him and said, “I’m not a fan.” Therefore, you need to get the best mark in your class. ”
Feeling the weight of her grandfather’s legacy, Mandela said he thought: Why should I be a leader? ”
Mandela said that later in his life he understood the importance of what his grandfather was saying.
“Pressure,” he said. “That’s how diamonds are made. …There was a lot of pressure underground. …So our parents want us to become diamonds. They don’t think about how powerful we have, so we want us to shine.”
Mandela said that by combining this lesson and other lessons with his understanding of genealogy and genealogy, he has a more confident understanding of his role as a leader in his home and in his community.
“In fact, leaders aren’t the best,” Mandela said. “It’s not about being number one. A leader is about serving your community.”
Find hope in the “songs of children”
Coming closer to the end of his remarks, Ndaba Mandela shared that his grandfather has a deep love and belief in young people as “the leader of tomorrow.”
He said: “In prison, they couldn’t hear the sounds of children. And what does the sounds of children represent? Hope to create a better world.”
Therefore, inspired by his grandfather’s belief in young people, Mandela dedicated some of his final remarks to encourage young people to “dreams.”
“I want you to dream so big, and your dreams will scare you,” Mandela said. “If your dreams don’t scare you, you don’t dream big enough.”
He also encouraged listeners to learn their genealogy and acknowledged the “hills and great mountains” that their ancestors had to climb to take them to where they are today.
“To know where we are going,” he said. “We need to know where we came from.”
