Our dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace.
This 2025 is a very special year for us here in South Africa. It is this year that marks the fiftieth
anniversary of your arrival on our South African soil. The devotees are very excited, preparing
for grand events to honor your arrival in the month of October. Thus far, we have put together
themes for each month in order to glorify Your Divine Grace, honor your instructions, and create
awareness of your landmark visit to this country. The themes that have been selected are based on
our South African history, but they have been strategically placed to meet and reflect the teach-
ings of the Vedic scriptures. This in itself showcases the spirit of the ancient wisdom that you self-
lessly translated and traversed the globe to share.
The themes also show a significant part of our history that spotlights the injustices of apartheid,
segregation, and discrimination. It was during the heightened period of apartheid that you visited
South Africa – in 1975 – when the borders of our country were tightly locked to any affiliation
or collaboration between countries, especially those that scrutinized South Africa’s laws. The
country was governed by strict laws that enforced division between the people based on race, yet
your vision was bold enough to set the tone for the yātrā that developed in every province of such
a country. Today, we see that ISKCON has played some part in bringing harmony to the people
here. Your visit inspired celebration of the Festival of Chariots and the building of the magnificent
Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Rādhānātha Temple of Understanding in Durban, which celebrates forty years since
its grand opening this year.
As teams from across the nation unite with enthusiasm to celebrate this milestone year, we
humbly acknowledge that our plans will remain mere aspirations without your blessings to bring
them to life. Therefore we earnestly seek your guidance and mercy to empower the South Afri-
can devotees to generate the energy and momentum required to honor your legacy. May we be
inspired to commemorate your monumental contributions to this country and the global diaspora
in a manner befitting your divine mission.
This year, we are focusing on steady book distribution to disseminate your transcendental liter-
ature. We have active Monthly Saṅkīrtana Festivals in all the major temples in the country, where
devotees go out collectively on book distribution to different areas. There is still so much more
that can be done in this regard, and plans are underway to drive the book distribution scores up
even further. We have also taken to online platforms to make your books more easily available.
In the past year, South Africa distributed 3,787 copies of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is during the Live To
Give campaign, and 130 sets of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam during the Bhadra Pūrṇimā campaign.
Food-for-Life South Africa holds a firm place in the heart of the social development sector by
feeding people indiscriminately within our country. Plates of prasādam are distributed daily to
school children around the country. One of the key focus areas of Food-for-Life South Africa is
to establish kitchens across the country, and thus far, many areas have well-equipped facilities to
serve hundreds – in some cases, thousands – of plates of prasādam per day. Food-for-Life South
Africa has been consistently active during times of disaster, demonstrating remarkable dedication
by swiftly establishing teams to serve meals even in severe weather. Their ability to organize and
deliver meals within tight turnaround periods has been a vital part of their response to crises,
ensuring that those affected receive much-needed spiritual and physical nourishment in moments
of urgency. The teams go into both urban and rural areas with high-powered kīrtana to create a
warm and welcoming mood whilst prasādam is being served. Over the past year, Food-for-Life
South Africa has served 1.9 million plates of prasādam across the country.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you desired when you visited South Africa to celebrate Ratha-yātrā festivals.
Our Ratha-yātrā festivals are well established and take place in several provinces and in smaller
towns as well. These festivals are now a standing event on the calendar, and major cities have it
earmarked on their municipal calendar of events. Lord Jagannātha takes to the streets of many
cities and offers His darshan to the diverse population of South Africa. We aim to bring people
together under the umbrella of a social-cohesion fest. In this way we sing together, dance together,
feast together, and showcase the blissful life of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The African Ratha-yātrā Alli-
ance assists in hosting fifteen Ratha-yātrā festivals across South Africa annually, and six in neigh-
boring African countries.
We are also pleased that many of our devotees are now serving the global yātrā in various
capacities. Just as you taught that training is essential, such training by senior ISKCON leaders
is underway, and South African devotees are now integrated into the global ISKCON space. This
brings a new dimension to the South African servant-leadership, as these devotees are not only
offering their service globally but also bringing back valuable knowledge and insights to South
Africa. Organized and demand-focused training is being established in South Africa, and we are
positive that it will lead to a better ISKCON home for everyone. This enhances continuous lead-
ership improvement within our preaching endeavors, always striving to do better in pleasing Your
Divine Grace.
South Africa will also have given the world two notable sannyāsīs by May of this year. They are
not only preaching in Africa but in the global space. This year, we welcome a homegrown sannyāsī.
This further enhances our preaching opportunities. Śrīla Prabhupāda, we offer our gratitude to
you for blessing us with such amazing devotees from this soil.
There is much more that can be done and still needs to be done to develop and enhance our
endeavors in spreading the holy names within the country. Although five decades have passed
since your visit, and inroads have been made to establish preaching centers and temples, there is
still so much groundwork to be navigated to honor you and spread the mission of Lord Caitanya
Mahāprabhu. It is in this mood that we pray at your lotus feet that you give us the intelligence,
strength, and guidance to take this mission to greater heights and to reach more of the people
of South Africa. A South Africa adage states, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: “A person is a person
through other people.” This denotes our interdependency. We indeed need kīrtana, meditation,
saṅga, and togetherness to heal from the division of our history and focus on unity, ultimately
remembering that we are all brothers and sisters in service to God, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is only through
your causeless mercy as the founder-ācārya of ISKCON. Therefore we again and again glorify you
so that we are able to make a positive difference and contribute meaningfully in our South Afri-
can landscape.
All glories, all glories, all glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda on his fiftieth landmark visit to South
Africa! We thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, for giving us this opportunity to know Śrī Śrī Rādhā-
Kṛṣṇa and for setting the foundation for our ISKCON home, where the most wonderful devotees
of South Africa are found.
Your servants,
The devotees of South Africa
(written by Kṛśāṅgi Rādhe Devī Dāsī, Communications Minister for SA)

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