The new community legacy recognition awards ceremony is the initiative and flagship of the Inheritor’s Foundation Church of Christ s’ community & ecumenical outreach program. The awards were launched with the assistance of the Office of the Premier of KZN in Pietermaritzburg on 10 December 2009.
The awards ceremony was originally designed for the KZN province to be launched in all eleven district municipalities of the province after extensive research of the premier world renowned Golden Globe Award which is an American accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association[HFPA].
They recognize excellence in film and television throughout the world, by hosting an annual formal ceremony and dinner during which their climax of the film industry’s season pitches with the Academy Awards. During my search I noted that they have honoured their own niche [film & television industry]religiously on more than seventy occasions during the annual dinner of the Golden Globe Awards and further noted that they have hosted the function consistently without a break every year at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, California since the year of my own birth [1961].
In our humility, I felt the calling that simple people who would never become film and television stars need their own humble dinner and function to celebrate their humble devotion to humanity no matter how small the magnitude of our function in comparison to the typical awards mentioned above, however, through the spirit of Christ and our heroes/heroines who have gone ahead of us serve as an inspiration.
From the simple and humble beginnings, I imagined that although I am not popular, rich and famous, but through the power of the Almighty Living God, invite the local and foreign dignitaries to attend the launch from near and far to host the annual function and dinner which is dedicated to our heroines/heroes. It is humbling that some dignitaries coming from the neighbouring provinces; towns and cities and countries of our continent and have shown interest in attending the Inheritor’s Awards ceremony which has been “popularly” named by the locals in the Pietermaritzburg neighbourhood of KZN as “INDONDO” instead of The Inheritor’s Annual Community Achievement Awards Ceremony.
I have have conviction that the name arises from the fact that the silent owner and intrinsic founder of the Inheritor’s Award is the Son of God Himself, sitting in Supreme Lordship as Jesus Christ and the Saviour who inspired me as fount to assume spiritual authority to crown all those who walk an extra mile in their various fields of devotion to labour with love without expecting any reward or compensation. One needs to look at the height and uniqueness of the trophy to witness that indeed it is the One; the only trophy representing His Grace and crown of the Lord Jesus Christ the King who is soon to come.
This is the broader community wide and open ended achievement appraisal system designed to allow ordinary people to evaluate and assess general performance and service delivery efforts at a public and societal level to nominate ordinary people who are local unsung heroes/heroines doing extra-ordinary things and not expect compensation.
Our main objective “is to consider champions of civic activism by recognizing people, partnerships, groups, organizations and individuals who use their resources, assets or skills to uplift and empower the forgotten people as well as appraisal of local geographical legacies, such as trusts, places and neighborhoods that are invaluable to human development, social cohesion and nation building”.
All other awards are corporate/internal awards designed & delineated for actors, musicians, professional players and popular celebrities in various fields. The Inheritor’s Annual Community Achievement Awards Ceremony “INDONDO” is the only project that embraces all categories and every community member interested in community development, legacy & heritage in general. This new generation & open community wide legacy recognition awards community development project is designed to enhance morality, good role modeling, community & nation building, deepening democracy and enhancement of national social compactness, spiritual RDP or therapy, social redress and reconciliation.
The Awards program is aimed at recognizing local heroes and heroines through nominations by any member of the community. This community Awards program is shortly known as “INDONDO”. We accept nominations from patrons, that is past honorees/awardees or /and press colleagues or any person of good standing. All our nominees are our winners
The ceremony was later enforced by the legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, albeit that the Fount Rev Caleb Mbokazi had conceived the inspiration during the mid-80’s through the work of the late Dr Aggrey Klaaste the former Sowetan newspaper editor who had piloted a successful project based community building awards. These awards in particular, however, could be defined as community legacy recognition awards. The awardee should have sustained his/her project over his or her life time. The project recognized should have elements that benefits the local community as a whole. Government has later introduced a concept known as social cohesion which we have adopted.
We are humbled for having pioneered this concept without referring to it as a concept.
All the awardees of INDONDO are identical in that they are nominated by members of the community as a result of the impact to the community. Our organizing committee memebrs have the right to pick and choose nominees. Nominees who decline our award upon the first approach, are normally never pursued any further.
The Founding Chairman [Fount] of the INDONDO Awards has a right to hand over the hosting rights of the ceremony to any Municipality/District/Province/ or Country that wishes to adopt and support the ceremony.
The ceremony is the only community legacy recognition awards program in the world that showcases the community pioneers / the grass root champions across the spectrum, who display best practices, enhancing the meeting of local celebrities rubbing shoulders with ordinary people for the purpose of rubbing off excellence of performance and inspiring winners to persevere in serving the public in whatever area they serve.
The Fount believes that he has the spiritual authority and vested powers to nominate and approach and pursue a prospective awardee and honour such an individual or representative of a trust / group or organization. The fount can redefine and fine tune each category from one occasion to the other depending on the availability of such a nominee/s during that particular season. For an example if there is no musician or related nominee under such a category, the fount and the supporting committee is not bound to award any nominee in such as category.
This ceremony is also unique in that it is an “open” Awards program as it is the only Awards in the world where everyone is encouraged to focus and get themselves involved in seeking the best generally acceptable practices and productivity in their area of operation from a car guard to an academic professor with a heart to help build communities. Other awards are dedicated to men or women or film or music stars.
Therefore, “INDONDO” can be described as, “everybody’s” Awards Ceremony, from a hawker to a professor of astronomy who has a community interest at heart. We are a program dedicated to uplifting the people behind the famous or popular people or organisations.
One should ponder and think about, that excellent car guard who might have helped you by noting down the registration of that vehicle which scratched your car and ran away?; that brave youth who saved their next of kin in a blazing and devastating fire or flooding river; a local businesswoman who helps bury the destitute and the indigent and yet does not expect anything in return; that sickly Mom who, despite her chronic illness cares, feeds and looks after a terminally ill neighbour who has no relatives; that forgotten local grass root soccer coach;Ponder and think about many inspiring names from your neighbourhood. Where is that anonymous kindergarten coach who moulded the likes of your national celebrities and many top sport stars coming from your region? before they could be international toast, with due respect Sir, you can name many unsung heroines/ heroes in different fields within our local communities. “INDONDO” recognizes the people, places, events and partnerships behind the prominent or successful events or people.
This ceremony makes their families celebrities for a day once in their life time. This ceremony show cases best practices and enhances service delivery improvement innovations at an open, community wide, grassroots level. Some families are helped to reconcile with one another.
One thinks of those who stand out and excel in areas such as pre-school teaching & learning, health care, public safety, medicine and nursing, policing, arts, entrepreneurship, public service, music, community health care, public transport, law and security, food production, construction and architecture, e.t.c. local outstanding and extraordinary acts of bravery or / and long service to their profession or labour and service of any kind. It is important for any country to adopt this kind of a project in order to overcome prejudice, discrimination and promote the deepening of the democratic process, unity and development.
The operating framework for the Awards is structured as follows;
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