A hush fell over the conference centre as a teenager rebuked a panel of politicians and civil society leaders who had gathered to debate how to put young people at the centre of urban renewal in Johannesburg.
Hope Ramalobela, 18, a student leader from Kensington Secondary School in Johannesburg East, stood up on Monday night to tell the panel exactly what she thought of their debate. And the truth was cutting.
“If the debate is about us [the children], let it be about us. Instead, I’m learning about budgets, etc – I don’t know about budgets.
“I go to school every day hungry, and when I come home, my mom apologises to me for not being able to give me food. But I know she’s doing her best,” she said.
After listening to a debate that strayed far from the subject of youth for an hour, the teen asked the panel the question that had originally been put to them: “How will they put the youth at the centre of urban renewal in Johannesburg?”
The panel consisted of Dr Taleng Mofokeng, medical doctor, global health expert, and EFF Johannesburg mayoral hopeful; activist Mark Heywood, co-founder of the Union Against Hunger; DA Johannesburg councillor Nomzekelo Mohamed; ActionSA MMC candidate for development planning, Ayanda Allie; and Matshidiso Lencoasa, public finance analyst at Section27.
ActionSA head Herman Mashaba was set to speak, but was replaced by Allie.
The debate, Metro Lives Johannesburg, was held at the Women’s Jail at Constitutional Hill.
It was set to feature a debate exploring the role municipalities can play in creating the conditions for children, young people and families to thrive.
But instead, conversations strayed to politicking.
Mofokeng told the auditorium that as mayor, she would help the youth achieve their dreams.
She said that the history of apartheid was still prevalent in the city because people were still confined to spaces designated by the apartheid government. She said that because of spatial apartheid, people experiencing poverty were burdened with having to wake up early to go to work.
“The residents are being punished by their own government. But the EFF gave the people a mayor [with] me,” she said, adding that the culture of corruption needed to change because “corruption is not faceless, failures of the city are failures in the youth.”
She said people did not trust the current government.
After Ramalobela’s scolding, Mofokeng said the “indigent” needed to be identified and helped by the city.
She scoffed at the idea that she was “competing against people in their 70s the DA’s Helen Zille is 75] and 60s [ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba is 67]. But I’m 44,” she said.
Heywood had the most practical solutions.
He said: “The youth don’t have enough of a voice in politics and communities. The city should be enabling [the youth] instead; it thwarts them, and in some instances actively conspires against them.”
He said politicians should not be the ones to set the agenda, “the people must set the agenda and the politicians follow”.
“The reason the youth are not voting is that they know people like us [the panel] promise, but behave differently,” he said, adding that a city where the children are going to school hungry or without proper nourishment can’t realise their full potential.
He believes the city and schools need to transform free spaces into gardens to supply nutritious food.
Speaking to the recent crackdown on foreign-owned spaza shops, Heywood said people “needed to be empowered to sell food, not to be treated like criminals”.
Mohamed said the majority of the youth did not want to get into politics.
“Civic education is an important right, but we need to be practical,” she said, adding that “as the DA, we have ideas.”
These ideas were to “eliminate corruption,” and to ensure Section 27 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to access health care services, sufficient food and water, and social security, is upheld.
Mohamed said the DA was pro-public-private partnerships (PPP).
She said: “As the DA, we need to create space where GBV victims can go – we believe it can be done [through PPP].”
Allie said the youth were not looking for slogans, “but actions – not promises”.
She said that, as a child, going to the Carlton Centre in the CBD was something she was excited about. She said people would polish their shoes and make themselves look nice before going, “now the same area is dilapidated – it’s a shame”.
She said a measure of success for the incoming government would be to have the hijacked inner-city buildings turned into low-cost housing or given to industries, NGOs or factories.
“ActionSA is pro a building overhaul,” she said, adding that buildings ought to be for creating a better life.
She said that when Mashaba was mayor in 2016, under DA leadership, “he identified 600 derelict buildings”.
“The plan was to lease them to developers for use as low-cost housing,” she said, adding that when he stepped down in 2019, 154 of those buildings had been converted.
“It’s a pressing issue, and buildings are symbolic, but we don’t want to focus on one issue – we will focus on all the issues [in Johannesburg] at the same time. We are the first [political party] to name a mayor [candidate] and the MMC’s,” she said.
Lencoasa said it was important to be “intentional about building a Joburg for all”
She said in 20 years, “We’re [going to be] accountable to the kids in ECD (early childhood development) now. Will we be answerable to them – did we fight for their rights?”
She said the municipality was unable to generate revenue because its people did not have jobs. “We shouldn’t have that problem.”
“We pay our rates and taxes and don’t get much from it,” she said.
Lencoasa said it was one thing to have no water as a resident, but having no water in “unequal societies” is “make-or-break for schools”.
She said the city was likely to be run by a coalition government after 4 November, but if the government works for the good of the people, it needed to “challenge the accountability of the government for the budget”.
As a closing to the night, another school-going teen, Hala Badat, told the panel: “I don’t trust any of you.”
“You say you’ll ‘make Joburg great again, but it was never great.”
She asked: “What can the city do to make spaces accessible to all and safe – especially for girls?”
Phylicia Oppelt, Project Lead of DGMT’s Change Ideas initiative, which co-convened the evening along with DGMT, Grow Great and Hold My Hand, had the final say.
She said she moved to the city in 1994, the “dawn of democracy.” and the city was “bright and shiny. But it’s been tarnished by our leaders.”
“We don’t need GBV shelters and places of safety – we need a caring society.
“The people who have run Johannesburg since 1994 have let us down.” she said.
She said people needed to realise that 4 November was not a holiday, and that residents should “get off their arses and vote”; they can braai after.
“We have lost a sense of our citizenship. With PPP, we have outsourced our voices,” she said, adding that she was ashamed of this Johannesburg.
“Let’s be citizens again… the buck stops with all of us, not politicians who canoe over potholes or those who call for a fumbling meeting,” she said.
MC Rahima Essop ended the session by looking at Ramalobela: “All caregivers are doing their best,” she said, speaking about the teen’s mom, adding that residents “just need municipalities” to do the same.
News24 originally published this article on 25 August 2026. Read it here.
