Organisers of the annual CEO sleepout, an initiative that raises money for various charities has said Corporate Executives willing to spare $300,000 will be able to sleep in a night in the Cell that Nelson Mandela slept for 18 years.
Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in Prison in the Robben Island cell, off Cape Town.
The cell, an 8-foot by 7-foot (2.4 metres by 2.1 metres) concrete cell will now be auctioned for top executives to sleep in as part of initiative to raise money and mark the Centenary of the prison number 46664’s birthday. The organisers hope to raise funds for the Prison-to-College Pipeline (P2P), a scheme that helps prisoners access university-level education.
The organisers said: “The suggestion was to auction the cell to raise money to fund the Prison-to-College Pipeline… educating incarcerated people in South Africa,” said Liane McGowan, spokeswoman for the CEO SleepOut South Africa adding that details of when the one night only fundraiser will take place, had not been finalised.
The bidding started at a whopping $250,000 (215,000 euros) andis believed to have reached $300,000 even thought the bid closes on July 6.
The winner will have the honour of spending one night in Mandela’s prison while the others will sleep elsewhere on the Island which is now a world heritage site.
Mandela dedicated most of his life to the fight against Apartheid and spent went to prison for his believes. He later became the first democratically elected President of South Africa in 1994.
The initiative is part of the CEO SleepOut movement which auctions nights in unusual locations to wealthy business leaders to raise money for charitable causes.
