YOUTH VOICES: Metro Lives panel explores why Johannesburg’s renewal will fail without its young people

Johannesburg’s renewal cannot succeed without the meaningful participation of its young people. At a Metro Lives dialogue hosted by the DG Murray Trust at Constitution Hill, speakers and youth activists discussed food insecurity, public safety, exclusion, municipal budgets and the need to place children and young people at the centre of the city’s future.

If Johannesburg is to rebuild itself, its young people cannot remain on the sidelines. The city’s renewal depends on treating them not as beneficiaries, but as co-authors of its future, said Matshidiso Lencoasa, a budget analyst at SECTION27.

“Johannesburg has these problems, but we also have ideas, we also have solutions. We just need to be intentional about listening to young people and foregrounding their voices so that we can really build a Johannesburg that works for all,” Lencoasa said.

Lencoasa was speaking at a Metro Lives dialogue hosted by the DG Murray Trust at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg on Monday, 24 August. She was joined by Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, the EFF mayoral candidate; Nomzekelo Mohamed, Democratic Alliance PR councillor; Mark Heywood, co-founder of Union Against Hunger; and ActionSA MMC candidate Ayanda Allie.

The discussion explored how Johannesburg can put children and young people at the centre of its renewal – and what local governments can do to build safer, healthier and more inclusive communities.

For some of the young people in the room, that renewal starts with something as basic as food. A high school learner spoke about going to school hungry in the City of Gold, then returning home to a mother who apologised for not being able to feed her.

Her story captured the human cost behind what Heywood later described as a failing urban food system – and a City that has yet to take its constitutional obligations seriously.

Johannesburg should be taking practical steps such as identifying municipal land where food can be grown, ensuring water, storage and security, and seeing the city itself as a food-producing space. He pointed to an inner-city farm near Johannesburg Stadium where young people learnt about agroecology, about the earth, and about seasons. Yet, instead of nurturing such initiatives, the City demolished the long-standing inner-city farm to build a multi-purpose centre.

Heywood also pushed for supporting the informal food economy rather than criminalising it. Informal traders, he noted, were often cheaper and closer to poorer communities, and could become a backbone of urban food security.

He called for the mapping and funding of the hundreds of community kitchens that are keeping people alive, and questioned why the Department of Social Development with a R1.8-billion budget was not systematically supporting them.