Nobody plans to be admitted to hospital. It happens on an ordinary Tuesday, after an accident, a collapse, a diagnosis that couldn't wait. And so people arrive in our public hospitals the way emergencies deliver them: with nothing. No soap. No toothbrush. No towel. The clothes they came in, and that's all.
Our teams have walked the wards of South Africa's public hospitals since 1997, and we have learned something about those first days of admission. Long before anyone asks for counselling, they need to feel human again. A wash. Clean teeth. A towel of their own. Small things, until you don't have them.
This Mandela Day, we're doing something about it and we'd love you to be part of it, however you're able to give.
The plan: 499 dignity bags
On Saturday 18 July, volunteers at two packing hubs — Tygerberg Hospital in the Western Cape and De La Porte Oasis in Gauteng — will spend their 67 minutes packing 499 dignity bags.Then, in the week that follows, the bags go where they matter. Not to a storeroom — into patients' hands, given by HospiVision's own hospital volunteers, the same people who walk those wards every week. Every single bag is a personal handover.
However you give, it becomes a bag
There's no fixed way to take part. Money and items go toward exactly the same goal: a complete bag, given to someone who arrived with nothing.
Give an item (soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, a face towel, deodorant, Vaseline, a spare shopper bag) and you've funded a real piece of a real bag.
Give money, in any amount, and it goes straight toward filling the gaps. Nobody needs to give exactly R67 or exactly one product. One item is enough. Any amount is enough.
Why 67?
Mandela Day asks each of us for 67 minutes in service of others — one for every year Madiba gave to public life. It's why we've built this drive around the number 67: our team gives the minutes, and R67 happens to cover the essentials in one bag. But that's a guide, not a rule — give R20, give R200, give a single bar of soap. It all lands in the same place.
Donate an item
Soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, Vaseline, face towels, deodorant — or those spare shopper bags at home. Drop off at Centurion Mall (Gauteng) or Brackenfell (Western Cape).
Email us: growth@hospivision.org.za
Shop the wishlist:
https://www.takealot.com/wishlist/shared/1:cd23ccdda0ff40e486aa489cebcc95da
Give your 67 minutes
Pack bags with us on 18 July. Families welcome, children make excellent packers.
Register: Pretoria · Cape Town
Give any amount
There's no minimum and no fixed ask — R67 is a guide, not a rule. Every rand goes toward filling a bag.
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Follow the bags
As donations come in, we'll post updates at every milestone — when the first 100 bags are funded, when bulk orders are placed, and when the bags reach the wards in the week of 20 to 24 July.
A bag of toiletries will not cure anyone. But it says something no medicine can: you are seen, and you matter. That has been HospiVision's message in South Africa's public hospitals for nearly thirty years. This Mandela Day, help us hand it over — 499 times... or more!
Give an item, give your time, or give what you can
HospiVision NPC has provided counselling, spiritual care and psychosocial support in public hospitals since 1997, reaching more than 220,000 people since 2009.
