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Joburg’s “People’s Mayor” Matongo laid to rest

Joburg’s “People’s Mayor” Matongo laid to rest

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER WITH a full civic ceremony befitting the No 1 citizen, Johannesburg laid its Executive Mayor Jolidee Matongo in a dignified and emotional service held in Johannesburg. Matongo (46) died in a car accident a week ago, just five weeks after he was elected as Mayor, succeeding Geoff Makhubu, who died from Covid-19. Speakers paid warm tributes to Matongo and praised him for his humility and commitment to serving the people of Johannesburg, one of Africa's biggest cities. One speaker described him as a “son of Africa who grew up in the streets of Soweto”.  One of the…
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Fighting hunger in Joburg, one meal at a time

Fighting hunger in Joburg, one meal at a time

MAGNIFICENT MNDEBELE SANNY Mashigo, 48, cooks and sells food to industrial workers around Strydom Park in Randburg, in the northwest of Johannesburg. But when Covid-19 came, with its lockdowns and regulations tearing livelihoods apart, her business and income were not spared. Mashigo stocks up in bulk for her business. With the initial lockdown, unable to cook, move around and sell, she found herself with so much groceries that she knew not what to do with it. But then she looked around her area, a shack settlement of about 600 households called Organic Market near Bramley View. What she saw was…
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Johannesburg in decay

Johannesburg in decay

"WHAT'S the word Johannesburg?” Gil Scott-Heron asked in 1975. An answer came the following year when children in Soweto ran into fascist bullets, their hearts full of courage and resolve to overcome oppression. Johannesburg – Joburg, Jozi, eGoli, eRhawutini, Gauteng, Maboneng – is a city of gold, lights, barbed wire, jazz, the sun setting into lava, the burnt orange of aloes in flower against dry grass, a great university, men with guns, shopping malls, the sudden malachite of parakeets on the wing above the city forest and the smoke from the braziers hanging low in the shack settlements when winter bites. Its…
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