FOLLOWING on from our report last week of her latest award, presented at the House of Lords, comes the news that Zerbanoo Gifford, founder of the ASHA Centre in Flaxley, was one of the late Nelson Mandela's 'pin up girls' when he was incarcerated in jail!

The story centres on a photograph that was taken of Zerbanoo, sitting alongside Labour leader Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys, at a rally in Trafalgar Square to campaign for Mandela's release from prison, and sanctions against apartheid South Africa, in 1985.

Zerbanoo made an impassioned speech at the event, and was later selected to present a petition for Mandela's release at 10 Downing Street.

But in a recent speech, Neil Kinnock has revealed how, when he and his wife were first introduced to the newly freed African hero many years later, the man astonished them by recognising them both instantly. When the pair asked Mandela how he could possibly have known who they were, he replied that the photograph of the rally, including the image of Zerbanoo, had been on the wall of his prison cell. The great man said: "I have spent years looking at your faces". And he explained that he had kept photographs of many of his supporters from around the world on his cell walls, during his famous, and lengthy, incarceration in the notorious prison on Robben Island.

But further connections with the ASHA Centre and Nelson Mandela have also come to light, including that of their links with the Bishop Trevor Huddlestone Memorial Centre in South Africa. This has enabled them to form exchange visits, so that young people from the townships of Johannesburg can visit the Forest centre, to devise theatre productions.

One of these, on the history of the South African nation and featuring the future President, was performed for Nelson Mandela at his home. He is said to have been amused by the portrayal of himself as a young man, before his arrest and imprisonment.

Actress Makhomo Tsepa, from the Trevor Huddlestone Centre, is currently on internship at the ASHA Centre. She was also one of the cast who performed for Mandela, and said: "Without Mandela and his colleagues who fought for my rights, I wouldn't have this opportunity to be on a theatre internship in Britain."

She added: "My mother was a single parent, I had no education, but through the exchange programme with the ASHA Centre I have found my vocation and my dreams are coming true."