South Africa is never dull but this last week and the week to follow will test both the physical and mental stamina of the UK Family here.
We kicked off on Wednesday with a youth engagement event at the High Commission to encourage support and interest in next week’s International Conference in London against Illegal Wild Life Trading. As the home of the world’s largest numbers of Black Rhinos and with a Rhino poached every 10 hours, South Africa has a major stake in this subject. We hope our events will focus attention on the urgency of the issue and the need for us all to commit to a co-ordinated and international approach.
Then we went onto another series of events with young people as the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay arrived in Swaziland (crossing the border from Mozambique; a first for the baton) yesterday. The baton then moves to Lesotho tomorrow and South Africa on Monday. I’ve dug out my trainers to run with the Baton Relay as we travel from schools and communities to charities and public displays. As with London 2012, the advent of the Glasgow Games is proving how powerful sport can be in bringing people together and fostering social and economic growth.
From all this my hopefully not too sore feet will then take me to Cape Town for our annual Eve of Parliament Party next Wednesday. This will also major on sport and education plus a seminal conference on promoting science and technology links between South African and UK researchers. The interest in all this has been terrific – a good precursor to our plans to develop still more in South Africa’s 20th year of Freedom and Democracy.
The metaphor of a race will be apt as we then move from limbering up on a programme of increased people to people links to the start in late February of our two year bilateral arts and culture programme: Connect ZA. Meanwhile the baton will have left Africa for St Helena and its long journey back to Scotland. But now back to Pretoria from Swaziland (for an evening) and then to Lesotho for further baton running tomorrow…