STORIES

SPAZA ART GALLERY

Spaza Art Gallery was established by artist Andrew Lindsay in 2001 in one half of a pair of semi-detached houses in Troyeville.  Over the years Spaza Art Gallery has exhibited over 100 artists and hosted many music and poetry events.

In 2003 Andrew Lindsay and Mira Kampstra Fassler won the competition to create the doors to the entrance of the new Constitution Court building.  These copper panels were entirely designed and assembled in the back yard of the Gallery.

The Spaza Gallery also hosted regular workshops including a Zulu pot making project and a series of wood sculpture workshops.  Some of these are to be seen in the Bertrams Park on Derby Road.  Many sculptures were also created in the sculpture garden that was established in the vacant lot next to the gallery in 2007.  The iThemba Tower of Hope was created in 2016, with over 7 000 bottles covering the disused cell phone tower.  Many of the bottles contain messages of Hope provided by the local school children.

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT TRUST (CDP)

Based in Derby Road, Bertrams, the Curriculum Development Project Trust (CDP) was founded in 1989.   CDP works with children on Early Childhood Development (ECD), school and aftercare programmes; with marginalised women on personal and economic transformation, and on community upliftment programmes that sometimes include immigrants and refugees.  All of CDP’s work is founded in the creative arts, building on the original intention to influence and design relevant, innovative and progressive teaching methodologies and curricula for the creative arts.

CDP works with government education departments and provincial and national departments of arts and culture to develop and implement schools projects which embed relevant creative arts and culture within educational policies and systems.

Through the medium of art, CDP supports women activists to amplify their voices, centering on issues of gender and patriarchy, women's rights, and towards building advocacy and transforming women's lives.  Projects focus on social justice; patriarchy; HIV and economic empowerment; women supporting women in their communities; women's public advocacy media, and children of the Inner City.  Resource and training manuals are produced in support of CDP’s programmes.

LOCK - LOVE OUR CITY KLEAN

Keitumetsi Mokoena and her partner Zwelihle Magwaza are the brains and energy behind LOCK.  Moved to action during a visit to the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), when they were shocked by the dirt and neglect in the vicinity, they began a clean-up campaign in the Joubert Park area.  

Based on this experience Keitumetsi and Zweli founded LOCK - an environmental start-up focused on helping to bring the management of solid waste under control within Inner City Johannesburg.  The model is collaborative, drawing in a number of partners in the private and public sectors to find environmentally-friendly solutions to waste management.   

The couple live in the Changemakers Residence in Makers Valley and work from VY Commons in Victoria Yards. 

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF SOUTH AFRICA

Boys & Girls Clubs of South Africa provides facility based after school programs for school going learners on a daily, predictable, and consistent basis.  The Boys & Girls Club of Bertrams opened in January 2018 and serves 300 kids on an annual basis.

The Boys & Girls Club of Bertrams was a labor of love, but in hindsight, one of the most rewarding programs we have started.  BGCSA spent over three years trying to launch a youth Club from the Maurice Freeman Recreation Centre, in partnership with the City of Johannesburg.  After much persistence, and patience, we were finally able to launch the program in January of 2018.  We were thrilled to hire many of our staff from within the neighborhood.  Our goal was always to provide a safe space for school going young people every day after school and on school holidays.  Programs complement school and home, and serve to develop young people holistically.  Programs enrich young people’s academics, help them balance a health mind, body, and soul, and ensure they model good ethics and character.  All of this combines to ensure kids are supported throughout their school going years, remain on track to matriculate, and develop their own plan for their future.  

The Club in Bertrams has been a rewarding project largely because we feel a part of the bigger community development plan, through the engagement with the Makers Valley collective.  As BGCSA, we were always attracted to Bertrams because of the number of complementary programs that predated us.  The fact that there is a healthy mix of big and small business, university, civil society, entrepreneurs, and social enterprises all engaged in the upliftment of the neighborhood meant that our work with young people would be an important piece of a bigger pie.  We have felt a part of that family and have tried to ensure the Maurice Freeman Rec Centre is a community space frequented and utilized to bring people together.  We have been successful through our small part, by providing a safe space for kids and teens, engaging their parents and guardians, and working together with other Maker’s Valley partners.  We look forward to increasing opportunities for young people in the neighborhood and working together towards collective impact.  

Our blue doors are always open, and we look forward to welcoming the community into our shared space.  For more information about our other Clubs, and our work as a whole, please visit www.bgcsa.org or follow us on social media!

SOBAE FROZEN

Thula Ndema and Thato Masondo are partners in life and in work.  Operating from their new shop in Victoria Yards they make artisanal sorbet in a range of seasonal combinations.  Their story is an inspiration to any young person wishing to venture into the small business arena.  Starting their careers in retail, Thula and Thato moved to work in an ice cream shop.  They had noticed that much of the unsold fruit in the city is wasted, and so when they realised how popular sorbet was in the ice cream shop, they began to experiment with making their own sorbet combinations.  Receiving positive feedback on their initial experiments, they decided to take the plunge and set up their own micro-enterprise in 2017.  The name SOBAE is a reflection of the love they have for one another, ‘bae’ being a term of endearment, especially among the youth.   

Thula and Thato personally source fruit that is almost over-ripe and thus filled with natural sweetness, and transform it into amazing and healthy flavour combinations, often combined with herbs, spices and vegetables.  They started to sell their sorbet in Maboneng outside Arts on Main, and in Braamfontein outside the Saturday market.  Based on the growing popularity of their wares they were soon invited into Victoria Yards, where they worked from VY Commons until late 2019, when they were given the opportunity for a dedicated little shop near the entrance to the Yards. The SOBAE shop is now fitted out with a large display freezer and all the equipment they need to make their sorbet in larger quantities.

Thula and Thato have many lessons to share with other would-be entrepreneurs.  Among these is the need for careful market research, accumulation of start-up capital, the discipline needed to persist in the face of initial hardships, willingness to make personal and financial sacrifices so that initial earnings can be reinvested back into the business, and unwavering courage and confidence in their brand.

URBAN FARMING : EDIBLE STREETS

Siyabonga Stanly Ndlangamandla is the energy driving this programme.  Siya works with several partners and involves children from Makers Valley in his initiative.  The idea is to turn Makers Valley into a green and fertile neighbourhood by planting vegetables and food trees along the pavements.  Vegetables are available for community members to harvest as they ripen, and residents are encouraged to plant food gardens of their own.  Siya also cooperates with community gardens in the vicinity including Siyakhana in Bezuidenhout Park ,and Bambanani in Bertrams.

RE-IMAGINED LEARNING CENTRE

Che-Vanni Beon Davids is the founding spirit behind the Re-imagined Learning Centre in Troyeville.  While completing a B.Ed at the University of Johannesburg, Che-Vanni realised that the conventional approach to the education of children was unacceptable to him.  He explains that ‘my heart longed for community’, so he decided to walk away from the university.  Within a year, a suitable house was made available on trust to Che-Vanni, and the Re-imagined Learning Community was founded, as a place of self-directed education.

 Local children and their parents were quickly drawn into the learning community. Re-imagined Learning has now grown to the extent that in 2020 there are 20 local children and their parents involved.  The Re-imagined Centre is the opposite of a ‘drop-off and go’ concept.  Parents contribute to the growth of the learning community in ways that are not always financial, but rather based on exchange of resources and skills.  They are fully involved in the deliberately inter-generational mix, thus ensuring that the values and practices experienced within the Centre are also translated into the children’s home environments.  

 The learning philosophy at the Centre is constantly evolving and mutating, although the founding principles remain those of ‘putting children in the drivers’ seats of their own lives’.  Children are trusted to evolve as autonomous human beings, while participating at their own pace in the many activities taking place at the Centre.  In addition to arts and crafts, music, reading and writing, activities  include cooking, woodwork, permaculture, bee-keeping and caring for domestic animals.   Outdoor activities are also available beyond the Centre’s own gardens, for example children and their parents periodically participate in ‘unschooling’ camps in rural settings.  

 The people of the Re-imagined Learning Community in Makers Valley also participate in gatherings of local and international ‘Unschoolers’ networks, within which experiences and knowledge are continuously exchanged. 

LASSIE THE STILTWALKER

In addition to the work he does with Timbuktu in the Valley, Lassie Ndalela runs a programme which he calls ‘Uncle Lassie’s Mobile Centre’.  He has a specially adapted bicycle, into which he packs the equipment and learning aids he uses when visiting the local ECD centres, where he engages the children in ‘playful learning’.  

‘Lasman da Stuntman’  also takes a leadership role in the street parades and clean-up campaigns that are becoming part of the Makers Valley culture.  Local children are encouraged to participate in street activities, and Lassie is also teaching several of the children to be stiltwalkers.  He is a popular entertainer at Victoria Yards ‘First Sundays’, when the Yards transform into an open market, drawing people from all over Johannesburg into the neighbourhood.   

In addition to his work with children, Lassie is also a performance entrepreneur for audiences of all ages, working both locally and in several international venues.  In these professional venues he functions as a multi-performer and carnival artist, combining stilt walking, dancing, clowning, and balloon artistry.