Excitement as Team South Africa heads to the Paris Summer Games

Bidvest supports programme aimed at galvanising South Africans to cheer their team on.

Team South Africa's participation at the Paris Summer Games is being celebrated using wall murals depicting some of the country's leading athletes. 23 wall murals have been painted in townships across South African provinces, decorated with painted pictures of the likes of Ntando Mahlangu and Wade van Niekerk to name a few. Most of the murals were painted by Nabil Batenga from 3D Branding and his team.

The murals are part of a drive to get South Africans behind our national teams-both able bodied and Paralympic teams -headed for the summer games in Paris starting on 26 July 2024.

Keep a look out for the Bidvest Supports Team SA murals in local communities. The wall murals urging South Africans to get behind the team can be found in the following areas:

• Mpumalanga: Shadrack Maelane Street, Emalahleni.
• Gauteng: Alexandra, Protea, Dobsonville, Pimville, Jabulani in Soweto
• Limpopo: Bela-Bela and Seshego
• North-West: Tlhabane and Mafikeng
• Kwazulu-Natal: Umlazi and Kwa-Mashu
• Eastern Cape: Mdantsane and Motherwell
• Western Cape: Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Nyanga
• Northern Cape: Galeshewe
• Free State: Mangaung

This initiative is part of the Bidvest Operation Excellence programme whose aim is to support athletes affiliated to South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) to ensure that they have sufficient resources to train and prepare for major local and global championships.  Some of the athletes depicted in the murals are 400m world record holder, Wade van Niekerk, and Paralympian Ntando Mahlangu.

Batenga said he and his team are proud to be part of bringing these images to communities such as Alexandra, Soweto, Thembisa and Emalahleni to name a few.

This, we hope, will help create awareness about the summer games in communities such as Gomora- as Alexandra is affectionately called. We trust that it will also create excitement about the games and get people to rally around Team South Africa. We are proud of our involvement with Team South Africa under the auspices of SASCOC. We believe that supporting our great athletes will help foster a spirit of togetherness as a country and support for the team at the games. It will also underline the team's motto of, "One Team, One Nation".

Batenga has been painting murals for 25 years and has a team of 16 in his employ. He said whenever they work in an area, they hire a few local residents to paint the walls and help with odd jobs, which do not require training. His company is subcontracted to Owakhe Media. One member of his team has worked with him for 15 years and the youngest, a 19- year-old has been with a company for a short while.  Batenga's love for painting murals has seen him do work in Australia, Tanzania and Dubai. He says he would love to see more young people get involved in the industry as it is rewarding if you are hard-working, passionate and committed.

This initiative has also provided monthly income to the families from whom we are renting the walls.

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