A South African charity that organizes a night where chief executives of big business sleep on the pavement to raise funds for the homeless and other worthy causes has apologized if they caused any offense offering to auction a night in in the late Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island cell.
The charity is offering to sell a night on a farm owned by the anti apartheid icon and South Africa’s first democratic president.
It was supposed to be a bonanza marking Nelson Mandela’s centenary birthday on July 18.
CEO Sleepout has for some years put business leaders on the street for a night and taken big money from them to give to charity.
The offer of Nelson Mandela’s cell had drawn offers of 300 000 euros when the Robben Island Museum accused the charity of exploiting Mandela’s heritage and insisted no-one would ever sleep in the cell.
At first the charity insisted it had been given permission from the authorities to make the offer.
Then it withdraw references to Robben Island from its website and apologized to the museum.
Executives will now be able to buy a night at a farm owned by Mandela instead.
The money they pay will go towards a charity seeking to reintegrate into society prisoners who have completed their sentences or been paroled.
They’ve postponed this year’s sleep out scheduled for July 18.