JOZI MY JOZI is a “coalition of the willing" that has now become “a coalition of doing", says Adam Craker. It is a super-connector of businesses, partner organisations, entities, institutions, NGOs and the city administration that is arresting the city's decay with a combination of a bold vision and practical hands-on improvement projects.
Craker tells me how it all started: “Robbie Brozin from Nando's and I are both advisory board members at Wits Business School. Two years ago, we were in discussion with Anglo American, who had moved out of the inner city and were offering their buildings to Wits.
“While it was a fantastic opportunity — 100,000m² of prime office real estate in the city — we quickly concluded that it wasn't ideal for Wits. One of the reasons was, of course, the poor state of the inner city.
“Robbie and I, together with Anglo, put our heads together to figure out if there was a way we could fix that, and the idea of creating an ecosystem of partners who would commit to fixing the city was born.
“We needed to conceptualise the idea, and Robbie called up Melusi Mhlungu, one of the most talented creatives in our country. He was based in New York at the time, where he had been living for eight years after being headhunted and was doing incredible work. He, for instance, has two Super Bowl ads to his name.
“Robbie called and asked him to come home and help create a new brand. The Jozi My Jozi brand concept is inspired by the ‘I ♥ New York' campaign that started in Manhattan in 1977, but we wanted something uniquely ours. And so we have this spirited approach where Jozi My Jozi is conceptualised as a movement to re-love, reimagine and re-experience the magic of our beautiful city.
“Over the past two years, the initial core of Anglo American, Nando's, IQbusiness, Wits University and the business school was quickly augmented by the big banks, who came on board immediately. Microsoft became our technology partner, and the Maharishi Invincibility Institute joined to drive education in the inner city. Melusi Mhlungu's new agency, We Are Bizarre, came on board as well.
“We have managed to ‘super-connect' an ecosystem of partner organisations, entities, NGOs, institutions and the city administration to fix and save our city.
“The focus is on five areas: first, safety and security, which is critical because if we don't get that under control, nobody will want to come back into the city. Then there are education, social aspects, commerce, and arts and culture."
“One of the first things we did on the safety and security front was to fix the wrecked Nelson Mandela Bridge.
“All the glass panels were broken along the bridge, it was covered in graffiti, and all the lights had been stolen. And as a tribute to Madiba, it was an absolute travesty to see the state of it.
“We have now completely restored the bridge to its former glory. Absa was the primary sponsor for this. We've installed solar lighting across the bridge connecting Braamfontein to Marshalltown. Through sponsorship, we've put LED lights on the bridge, which change colour. With the support of PG Glass, Govender's Aluminium & Glass and FNB, all the glass on the bridge has been replaced.
“The bridge is now a beacon of hope in the city centre."
“We have installed over 200 solar street lights in the city from Braamfontein to Marshalltown. There are plans for 450 more and then a doubling of that in the Ellis Park area. So, very quickly, we started to make the areas safe, secure and lit up.
“Each of the lights has a tracking device. So, if a vehicle hits one of the poles, our security team is there within minutes. If somebody climbs the pole and tries to remove the light, the sensor alerts us, and we'll be there very quickly. The lights are a very important part of what we're doing."
“There are 12 major access points to the city called gateways, and they are an absolute disgrace.
“Together with the City of Joburg, work has now started on cleaning up four of the gateways — clearing and cleaning, relocating the people who have taken up residence there, and launching an ambitious programme, with the support of corporate sponsors and artists in the CBD, to decorate the gateways to make them attractive, safe and welcoming access points into the city."
“In the old Marshalltown precinct, Anglo American donated its magnificent 45 Main Street head office to the Maharishi Invincibility Institute, a donation of about R120 million.
“The institute is an accredited and registered non-profit South African skills-to-work educational organisation. This donation has allowed it to increase student numbers from 1,000 to more than 2,000, including a high school and preschool. Over the next 18 months, that number will double again. It's a major breakthrough.
“We are also about to hand an adjacent Anglo building to the Wits Crucible, the Business School's centre for entrepreneurship, so this whole inner city precinct is developing into Education Town."
“An open area adjacent to the double-decker highway will, with the help of Standard Bank and other donors, be converted into sports facilities for the institute. Africa Padel has also committed to building two new padel courts to the tune of R2 million."
“We are in the final stages of negotiation to repurpose another building in Marshalltown to a heritage centre with a museum and an active art centre. This building will also house a technology experiential centre that could complement Sci-Bono and provide an artificial intelligence experience. So, we are bringing the old and the frontier technologies together. For me, that is extremely exciting.”
“We have a massive inner-city clean-up programme planned with all our corporate and other partners for Mandela Day on the 18th of July.
“Ellis Park will be the central hub, and teams will move into Hillbrow and surrounding areas for block-by-block clean-ups. The same will happen in the Ellis Park precinct, which is being refreshed with new paint, the installation of solar lighting and a greening project to prepare it for the big international rugby Test later this year.
“We want to make it an attractive area again and give people confidence to return to the city. The City Improvement District (CID) management will then control and maintain the precinct. For us, sustainability of all our projects is key.”
The Rand Club in the centre of town has a new, young, culturally diverse and dynamic team running it. They've managed to raise funding to completely refurbish it, even selling some of the club's artefacts to raise funding.
“They've opened a jazz bar — Mara Lounge — and there's the Long Bar. It's brilliant and an absolute inspiration.
“We will soon be moving our Jozi My Jozi headquarters to the Rand Club, where we have been offered space on the top floor. And it will become our base in the inner city, which is very exciting."
“Before the bridge's fixing, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Johannesburg. Before this was implemented, we would not have been able to do anything to publicly owned infrastructure without the relevant leave rights and permissions. We could have been arrested if we had taken a paintbrush to the bridge without the city's permission!
“The work that we, as Jozi My Jozi, are doing would be extremely difficult without the support of the City of Johannesburg. We are incredibly grateful that they saw our collaboration as a major benefit to the city."
“Another aspect we are looking into is getting government support to declare the Johannesburg CBD a special economic zone. If we get that, the inner city will be afforded specific tax incentives, labour law incentives and so forth that will attract businesses to come back and operate from the city, growing the economy and offering job opportunities to the youth and small businesses."
♦ VWB ♦
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Anneliese Burgess is a former co-editor of Vrye Weekblad. She was awarded the ATKV-Mediaveertjie for investigative journalism in 2023.
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