The onstage embrace sealed the fate and future of reimagined Johannesburg under the bright night skies

This is as Jozi My Jozi launches Babize Bonke campaign

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTs Editor

I must state upfront that when I heard for the first time about two years ago that a Non-Governmental Organisation going by the name of Jozi My Jozi is in place to try to reimagine and get rid of the chaos that our beloved city has become, just like many others I was skeptical.

After all, the City of Gold, where many, the crooked, the good and the ugly descended on since 1886, when gold was discovered, has become something else.  It is the city where many found fortune and where more others lost it. However, we all love our Jozi, and sadly in the past 20 years or so, it has become a place where one only passes through if they cannot avoid it. Chaos reigns supremely. Streets are dirty, buildings are crumbling, tsotsis and chancers have found a haven.

Corporates have relocated to the north of the city, abandoned their once air-conditioned head offices. They have effectively created a new Johannesburg in the north, where the wealthy and perhaps the wise dine and wine, leaving old Johannesburg to its own devices for survival, where the poor have to content living on the edge side by side with tsotsis. The old city has in fact become something like a joke. My friends and I sometimes call it one giant museum that must be called such, a city that must be left to sleep nicely, and die a dignified death instead of being disturbed.

However, after what I witnessed on Thursday night, September 11, 2025, when I joined a group of dreamers for a night out in the city, where we were shown a reimagined city, a city that refuses to die, with gems that are hidden from the naked eye, I am convinced that there is a realistic chance of remaking this city to be great again.A city that housed generations of dreamers and chancers where money was made, where money was lost, where money was made, where money for the majority became an elusive dream.

At the forefront of the reimagining of a beautiful city, a city where it is possible to  live, dine and wine, make friendship and lose friendship, make connections and make things happen, just like in 1886, when the ambitious and dreamers created Johannesburg, from nothing to become a world  famous metropolitan centre when god was discovered, is Jozi My Jozi,.

It is organization started by a curious mix of people -the corporates, paradoxically whose head offices are now in the north, ambitious activists and dreamers, who believe that the city can be great again. One individual who is at the centre of this drive, a central character in this play of the crazy, as its Chief executive officer described the collective, dreamers and ambitious is Robbie Brozin,. He is co-founder of global chicken chain Nandos. He has assembled a team working under the banner of Jozi My Jozi to make this dream a reality, and I must say, based on what I and others on that night incursion into the city saw, good old Jozi may become a reality. The team is tight, passionate and driven by Chief Executive Bea Swanepoel and Dawn Roberstson.

We were,shownthe other side of Jozi that since the chaos set in, we either took it for granted or were completely not aware of its existence even as we drive through it on those occasions when we cannot avoid driving through the city. That side is the good side of Johannesburg. A side that instead of seeing the ugly side of crime and grime, doom and hopelessness, is a side of possibilities. For example, entrepreneurs are alive in the city, artistic energy permeates the dark alleys and once abandoned buildings that are being rebuilt and repurposed for other uses, such as artist studios, and apartments. Empty land is also being turned into sporting fields for the convenience of city residents.

For example a big chunk of the ming district, a one time home of mining giant Anglo American, is being turned into an educational node, where Maharash Institute  under the direction of its founder, a  Dr Taddy Blecher is making a dream of young people looking for job opportunities as security guards  a reality  through their  three year training course instead of a few weeks of training as is usual the norm. We witnessed what the outcome of this training is on Thursday – which goes beyond just providing security. Just before the dinner that was held under the bright night skies at 44 Main Street, we were entertained by a huge choir. Adorned in colorful traditionalXitsonga regalia, in a hall not far from where the dinner took place, for a moment, we even forgot that these are not students of music, but people being trained to provide security services.

At the dinner, just before we the official proceedings, I can tell you about the parade by the security guys, could rival that of the Chinse military parade.

When Robbie went on stage to speak about the work that Jozi my Jozi is doing to reawaken what is actuallyadying city, it became clear that he and his mates have assembled a team of dreamers. A team that shares the same vision as him. In fact, when he said that he saw what they were doing as the work of God, many of us seated on the sprawling dinner tables did not disagree.

One of the visionaries and optimists he has brought in is Melusi Mhlungu, a South African born creative he shipped from New York where he was comfortable doing wonderful creative work, according to Brozin. It took two meetings -the first one at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, and the second one at a café in New York City, to convince the creative to come back home and dream along with Brazin, we were told.

Melu as he is popularly known, is indeed a genius based on what he has created for this Jozi My Jozi campaign called Babize Bonke, a series of well-crafted concise stories about people who make things happen in the city, when others do not see the possibility. You will soon see them on social media, and boy, I can tell you they can shame the boring adverts we often see on TV these days. These are real stories of people making a change in the city.

These eight short stories are powerful. From DJ Kenzero’s famous Braam based live entertainment venue, Untitled Basement to a mama who has created an inner-city garden to feed the hungry, these stories capture well the possibilities for those who dream big in the city.

When I left the dinner, which was around 8pm, I was left with no doubt that it was possible to turn around a dying city. We may as well see a much improving city when delegates of the G20 descend on our shores this November as Robbie and his organization told us under the bright night skies on Thursday.

After all the team he has assembled to dream with him are dedicated people equally passionate about what they are doing. There is clearly chemistry among the people driving this campaign. When we witnessed the onstage embrace between Robbie and Melu, it was more than symbolic expression of appreciation of each other’s genius. It was a sealing of the future and of possibility for Johannesburg.  The embrace sealed the fate of reimagined Johannesburg.