Thursday 18th July marked Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday which has been designated by the United Nations as Mandela Day.

And in the spirt of the great man, many people in Scotland and across the world spent 67 minutes of their day volunteering, to honour the 67 years Mandela spent fighting for the rights of everyone in South Africa, and for humanity.

The aim of Mandela Day is to encourage people to take action to make the world a better place - something that we in Scotland are fully behind. By making changes to improve the world one step at a time, we can continue Mandela's legacy.

This Mandela Day I was pleased to take part in Action for Southern Africa's book appeal at the STUC offices in Glasgow.

This appeal has involved hundreds of volunteers from across Scotland, and sent more than four hundred thousand books to South Africa over the last 19 years for use in schools and libraries.

I donated and boxed up books which had been handed to ACTSA to help encourage literacy in South Africa, and saw first-hand how strong the links are between Scotland and South Africa.

Glasgow has its own special links with Nelson Mandela, as the city made the pioneering decision to give Mandela the Freedom of the City in 1981 – the first place anywhere in the world to do so.

This showed our support for the campaign to free him from jail. It was a very brave move by the city, as at that point Mandela was still thought of by many, including some in the UK Government at the time, as a terrorist.

Nelson Mandela is a truly inspirational figure - many different people have their own story of being inspired by a man they have never met, but feel as if they know personally.

When I was at school, few subjects captivated me (a fact my teachers would attest to!) with the exception of Modern Studies.

I first heard the story of Mandela's struggle against racism and apartheid in a Modern Studies lesson, and I was inspired. His fight for equality and to eliminate oppression motivated me to become politically active.

Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy and equality. Here we continue to fight against inequality in its various ugly forms. Although we have made progress, we still have some way to go until we can say we have a truly equal society for all.

It is vital that the bigoted racism of the SDL and BNP, latent homophobia and misogyny are stopped and Scotland's values of tolerance and compassion overcome those who spread this hate.

This year's Mandela Day celebrations were certainly poignant, and it has been very clear during his illness that he holds a special place in people's hearts – from all ages, backgrounds and beliefs.

Mandela remains in our thoughts and prayers. Great men and women come and go, but their legacies and values live on and endure. From Scotland and from Glasgow, get well soon Madiba!