Robben Island Museum

In 2000, South Africa Partners was very pleased to collaborate with the Robben Island Museum by facilitating a series of fundraising events in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul that honored former South African president, Nelson Mandela.

This marked the second collaboration between SA Partners and the Robben Island Museum, which was established by the South African Parliament as a mechanism to develop Robben Island, South Africa's most notorious prison. The corporate fundraising campaign, which made the visit to the Twin Cities possible, was led by The St. Paul Companies, which pledged $1 million from local corporations for the construction of the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island. Medtronic, Inc. and Wells Fargo Bank Minnesota joined The St. Paul Companies as lead contributors.

The Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island is built on Cape Town's waterfront area and includes an exhibition space, a theater, restaurant, and a pier where visitors can board boats for the trip over to the former prison facilities on Robben Island. Describing the significance of Robben Island, Ahmed Kathrada, a former political prisoner with Nelson Mandela, and now Chairman of the Robben Island Museum Council, commented that the museum celebrates the triumph of "wisdom over small minds and pettiness, of non-racialism over bigotry, of the new South Africa over the old."

Robben Island symbolizes not only for South Africa, but also for the entire world, the power of the human spirit to triumph over enormous hardship and adversity. As a cultural symbol for South African democracy, Robben Island is recognized internationally as an emblem of liberation and in 1999 was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO