THOUGH known as the peak of winter, the month of July, in South Africa, has uplifting moments of heart-warming brilliance.

Durban July often has its day on the first Saturday of the month.

The country and the world swing in unison to remember former president Nelson Mandela's birthday.

The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund gathers children to also stake their claim on how best to mark the birthday of the world's most loved son. And the 8th Nelson Mandela Lecture, hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, never fails to provide a classroom on the lessons of life, politics and the enduring struggles of ordinary people.

For the first time in more than 100 years the Durban July handicap was held on the last Saturday of the month.

Those who dream dreams, punters, chancing celebrities and those who invest in their good looks and dress sense did not miss to add their share of colour to this year's Durban July on Saturday.

Thirteen days earlier, on July 18, the spirit of giving was felt far and wide to mark Mandela Day. Declared by United Nations general assembly on November 10 2009, Mandela Day has become a source of inspiration to giving time and service for the good of others.

Done with a good heart, the 67 minutes of giving, can amount to days, months and years of compassion capable of making the miserable among us develop hope for themselves.

This giving, though, should not end with keeping hunger at bay. It should rather be extended with the purpose of enabling the destitute and putting a decisive stop to their plight, find their feet again to stand on their own and to actually walk the freedom that makes truly liberated people cease being immobile objects of pity that only live and move at the mercy of the haves.

A better life for all not only makes the world move clockwise but also to exude with kindness.

To help remake this world leaders should abstain from making a career out of citizens' problems or to ordain themselves as the authors of their misery.

People should redeem themselves from devilish minds that feed their predatory instincts on the innocence of kids and ravages the dignity of the elderly.

Only then will giving on Mandela Day be not in vain.

Madiba's 92nd birthday, staged by children on Friday, was both a celebration and an illustration of that age-old African proverb that "it takes a village to raise a child".

The caring moral of that proverb stems from the abiding wish to simply allow children to experience the joy of just being children. Children's Fund chief executive Sibongile Mkhabela's description of this wish is enough to touch many hearts: "The joy of being allowed to play, sing, dance, dream and be lost in the wonder of chasing butterflies and be thrilled by the misses and catches that mean no harm."

The 8th Nelson Mandela Lecture by Prof Ariel Dorfman ended July on breathtaking intellectual note. The destruction of power, gone mad in heads of leaders to become dictators that reduce citizens to misrule was too obvious to be missed.

And the restorative vision of leaders to become beacons of hope when power goes into their feet to walk the downtrodden to freedom was just as inspiring.

In Dorfman's lecture, the low temperature that comes with July month's winter saw hearts that had frozen with despair being invigorated by his intellectual warmth to melt with hope.