By SAUL MOLOBI, Jambo Africa Online’s Publisher.
The abOVEnormal sports gear is launching a groundbreaking initiative, SOW (Seeds of Wellness), that aims to revive and keep the momentum of encouraging the masses of our people to exercise by taking early morning walks to develop a culture of wellness among our people – as a way to minimise the prevalence of lifestyle diseases – but we are also tying it to attempts at halting deforestation by encouraging our communities to plant trees – this last initiative ties in nicely with government’s strategic objective of planting 10 million trees in five years. We will use our 28th Freedom Month to launch this event by planting 28 trees on 23 April but then go further through our mass awareness campaign through the mainstream and social media mobilise our supporters in various communities to form groups which will each plant 28 trees during this historic month in our history. This may see bigger villages and townships with more than one group each planting 28 trees.
With the acute rise of what the Ministry of Health described as lifestyle diseases among our people, President Cyril Ramaphosa launched his presidency, through the clarion call of “thuma mina” symbolised by him undertaking early morning walks as also symbolic of his administration embarking on a journey of renewal of our country. “This for us, as abOVEnormal, meant he was essentially SOWING a seed for inculcating a culture of wellness and health consciousness among our people,” says Masingita Masunga, the brand custodian and founder of abOVEnormal. “A country is WELL if its citizenry is healthy and has a higher life span. A country is WELL if its democracy and its institutions are functional and effective. A WELL country celebrates its heritage while adopting post modernist developments by embracing not only what they used to be, but also what they have become and what they will bein future. This means we constantly have to SOW the abOVEnormal seeds for reawakening, seeds that will celebrate our heroes in inspiring the current and future to strive to build on a strong foundation that we’re building today. So abOVEnormal will be planting trees as symbols of our investment into the future.
“These trees will be starting what we call a ‘Garden of Remembrance’ which will pay homage to some of our fallen heroes.” Remember what Solomon “Kalushi” Mahlangu’s last gallant words which propagated the analogy of SOWING: “The tree of liberty grows stronger when watered the blood of the martyrs.” “Yes, he paid the ultimate sacrifice by SOWING his body for our country’s today’s WELLNESS. Let’s SOW the seeds of our country’s abOVEnormal success every April, our Freedom Month. We commit to plant a tree every year dedicated to an abOVEnormal person in the public, private and civil society sectors to building our country into a successful nation,” says the sassy television personality.
“We believe this is achievable as many may recall that in the mid-1980s at the height of our struggle against apartheid, when communities resolved to render apartheid ungovernable, and took over their governance through organs of people’s power, they built community parks and cleaned their streets to beautify their environments.”
In his Human Rights Day speech on 21 March, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke glowingly about Rwandans keeping their environments clean, and he encouraged South Africans to do the same. “This made us smile because he was speaking to this campaign that we have decided to embark upon. This is what we grew up doing, cleaning not only our yards, but our streets and schools once every week. So our campaign will be taking our communities back to the basics of community self empowerment.
“So we have therefore decided to launch this campaign during April, Freedom Month, as the planting of trees and beautification of our environments have always been part of our struggle as symbolic of communities exercising their people’s power and each of the trees will be dedicated to the sacrifices paid by our fallen heroes for us as a country to be free. This effort is symbolic of our today’s effort in rebuilding our country for the benefit of our future generations.”
The abOVEnormal team and national dignitaries will plant the trees on 23 April at the Kloofendaal Nature Reserve on Veronica Street, Kloofendaal, Roodepoort.
abOVEnormal is a holistic (body, mind and soul) fitness brand ( it helps to achieve optimum fitness through a lifestyle of non-conformity, non-confinement, resilience and resistance to situations, circumstances and attitudes that are limiting). It is formulated in multiple products, programs and platforms.
Its strategic objectives are as follows:
• To promote national unity in diversity.
• To contribute to the healing of the nation
• To encourage collaboration and working together for the well being of the nation.
• To accelerate the process of transformation and making it an inclusive process.
• To inspire the spirit of social-cohesion.
Masingita invites all members of the media to attend this ground breaking event. They should speak to Nxalati Hlongwane on 072 516 2675.
She also invites individual community members who want to champion this event in their communities to speak to Aileen Francis at 066 285 4298.