MANDELA DAY – AMWASA

67 minutes. One story that must not be lost.

Each year on 18 July, we set one writing challenge in honour of service, memory, and the quiet work of preserving what elders carry. This year: sit with someone, listen, and write down what would otherwise disappear.

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2026 CHALLENGE

The Untold Story Challenge

Every family has an elder holding a story no one has written down — a migration, a first business, a quiet defiance. This Mandela Day, we’re asking writers to receive that story as an amanah, a trust, and carry it forward.

Before you begin

AN OPTIONAL PRAYER TO OPEN YOUR SETTING

A short prayer to hold the conversation with the right intention, before a single question is asked.

The Conversation

TWELVE INTERVIEW PROMPTS PREPARED FOR YOU

Arranged from easy memory into deeper reflection, so the sitting unfolds gently rather than feeling like an interrogation.

After the sitting

TURNING IT INTO A PAGE, OR SOMETHING MORE

Simple guidance for shaping what you heard into 300–800 words — a beginning, not a biography.

download the free guide

Prompts and writing guidance — one PDF, no cost, open to every one.

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No sign-up needed — just the challenge.

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THE RECORD

A growing archive

Each Mandela Day adds one new challenge to this page. Nothing is ever removed — this becomes its own small record of what our community has chosen to preserve, year on year.

2026

The Untold Story Challenge

Interview an elder for 67 minutes and write down the story only they could tell.

View

2027

Next year’s challenge

Revealed here on the next Mandela Day, in sha Allah.