Mandela's daughter thanks college for sculpture

Nelson Mandela’s daughter has thanked a sculptor who tracked down her father and created a bust of him.

Makaziwe "Maki" Mandela-Amuah sent a “message of appreciation” to Homerton College, Cambridge which will display the model.

A former student, Jo Standeven, said making the bust “was a challenge but a very positive experience, stemming from his amazing personality”.

She described “getting quite close to him” during his visit to Essex University in 1996 and making sketches of the anti-apartheid campaigner.

Ms Mandela-Amuah said: "I am glad that 14 years after my father passed away, people around the world still remember him fondly for his fight for justice, for peace, for freedom, for a more diverse and inclusive world.”

She said she hoped that people viewing the bust "are reminded there is good in all of us" and that "it is our responsibility to contribute, to make this world truly peaceful and harmonious".

The bust has been donated to Homerton College by Ms Standeven, who was a student there in the 1950s.

She described "tracking" Mr Mandela as he drove into Essex University for a ceremony.

“He was in his 70’s. He was being taken to another building and we ran across the grass when he came out.

"I got quite close to him and I did a few sketches and later on, I saved some black and white photographs from the local papers."

Principal Lord Simon Woolley said he was "beyond pleased" that college members and visitors could see “this civil rights global icon”.

"I hope it will encourage and inspire our students, black and white, to know him, to know his values and to live up to the ideals that we can have a greater world," he said.

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