Let’s rebuild Alex back to its former glory, urges Joburg Council Speaker
Speaker of the City of Johannesburg Colleen Makhubela calls for leaders that will walk the rebuilding journey of Alexandra along with the township folks.
City of Johannesburg, Speaker of the House Colleen Makhubela has called on corporates to open their wallets and generously support the rebuilding of Alexandra township.
She was the keynote speaker at a breakfast meeting of the We Love Alexandra Community Makeover Project at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) offices in Sandton which was meant to drum up financial support for the project that was launched three years ago but struggles to take off.
Growing up in Giyani, Limpopo, Makhubela said most of the villagers along with herself, often fantasised about going to ‘Johnny’ [Johannesburg] and Alexandra in particular and to them it was a place of milk and honey where one’s life could change just like that, the same way you flick a switch.
“To us, Alexandra was like the Mecca of an ultimate lifestyle we all desired as it was famously known for its arts and music vibrancy, and the whole village often mused about life in this great place that had literally swallowed most of our villagers who had gone and never returned.
“We looked forward to our turn to journey to Johnny for that lifestyle we often heard of, but today, that Mecca of a lifestyle has been reduced to rubble and all forms of despair, filth and hopelessness and it is for this reason why I urge all the corporates to join us as we endeavour to rebuild this once great place and return it to its former glory,” she said.
In doing so, Makhubela warned that ‘we should take cognisance of the fact that what the people of Alexandra want for their township is totally different from what we sit in the boardrooms and decide upon.
We often want to make Alex look like Sandton which is impossible and goes against the very grain of what the people of Alex want to see their community develop into’.
Makhubela likened Alexandra township, which was named after the wife of former Zandfontein farm owner Herbert Papenfuss as she loved people, to a woman. “We all know that women love money and looking elegant, and these are the attributes of Alexandra.
“The people of this township love all things glamour, and they also love people, and these are characteristics of the township that we should take cognisance of when we rebuild and we should endeavour to preserve it,” she said.
Makhubela said what was needed was friendship between the corporates and the people of Alex, between the clergy in Alex and their counterparts in Sandton. “We will not succeed in redeveloping Alex without first understanding the people.
“The children of Alexandra have a particular way in which they would like to see their playground look. It’s with this in mind that we want leaders who will take the people of Alexandra by the hand and walk the development journey of the township with them side by side and move it from being poverty-stricken to a world-class township.”
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