Table of contents for Issue 304 2022 in The Big Issue

Welcome to another Guest Editor edition of The Big Issue with Refilwe Moloto. Listen to her breakfast show on CapeTalk every weekday, from 6am to 9am. By buying The Big Issue you have directly supported our vendors’ livelihoods. Enjoy the read! How did you transition from a burgeoning career in finance and business to working for a radio station as a broadcast journalist in the media, and why? I began providing insights on themes, trends and business news I picked up in my consulting, speaking and advisory work in and around the continent, a segment called Business in Africa, which aired weekly on the Afternoon Drive show. After a few stints hosting The Money Show, when Bruce Whitfield was away, I was offered the opportunity to host my own show.…

ABOUT THE BOOK A reluctant friendship develops between two people in an apartment block in Shanghai. Each has a secret, a hidden past that must not intrude upon the present. Beth has been dispatched from Johannesburg to South Africa’s diplomatic mission in this vast Chinese metropolis. Newly divorced, childless, and uneasy about her decision to remain in the employ of a regime she distrusts, she is adrift in her own life. Until she meets Zhao, her upstairs neighbour. Beth has heard him typing late at night, but Zhao insists she must be mistaken. Zhao – older, unmarried, and a former high-ranking Party journalist – becomes Beth’s friend, the one new friend she has allowed her grown-up self to make. She is not prepared for a disappearance, followed by the arrival,…

We have an enormous opportunity to attract talent from all over the world to work here: 52% of South Africa’s fintech start-ups are located in Cape Town. Amazon’s new campus speaks to this trend, as does the new, and very bold, Luno sign in town. Boxwood is one of the larger office landlords in Cape Town’s Central Business District (CBD). Our focus is to buy rundown office buildings with potential – and then to upgrade them. Through the last two years we have learnt some valuable lessons and we have been humbled and enriched in the process. Covid demanded that we reinvent our approach to our buildings, to our neighbours, to the streetscape and to our tenants. The result is that our redeveloped buildings are more people focused; they are…

This March, South Africa will have been under Covid-19 restrictions or lockdown conditions for two years. While calls are growing louder for the National State of Disaster to be lifted, it should be made clear that nonpharmaceutical measures such as social distancing, wearing face masks and washing hands should continue to be practised alongside vaccinations. However, I wonder whether, in our haste to get back to our lives, we are perhaps moving on too quickly? Might we be missing an opportunity to stop, take stock and learn important lessons from all that Covid-19 has shown us about the South African reality? More appropriately, might we be missing an opportunity to learn and respond to important realities, known to us for years and ignored for as long, but so aptly amplified…

HOW DO YOU OPERATE? The principle is simple. We are approached to create food gardens where members of the public can harvest food for their table. The verge ‘owner’ undertakes watering and maintenance and together we create free produce. We and the other members of the Creating Eden family contribute time, plant seedlings and anything else required, for free. We believe that by doing so, we teach, pass on knowledge, experience and support. We’re a real community powered by our intent to create a true community for change, and love for one another. We do not accept sponsorship or support from any organisation or company and our independence is critical to creating our goal, which is ‘free food for all’. In our journey we have met wonderful, giving, caring people…

SPIER SUNSET SESSIONS: LIVE MUSIC ON THE WERF Unwind with local music, wine and food on the banks of the Eerste River at Spier in Stellenbosch. Book a picnic or visit one of the famous wine estate’s many eateries. Live: 25 February; music by François Haasbroek, 4pm to 7pm. Tickets: Admission is free, but secure your spot on the lawn in advance on Dineplan (limited capacity for social distancing). www.spier.co.za; www.dineplan.com Western Cape HIGH TEA GLAMOUR Get your glam on at a royal high tea with L’Occitane and The Real Crystal Birch set on the 6th floor of the stunning Silo Hotel. Decadent delights crafted by talented head pastry chef Devin Jones will be served, together with Nicolas Feuillatte champagne. Lean in as brand stories are told, such as the…

back to our cities in the roaring 20s As Covid-19 turns endemic, we have witnessed the ebb and flow return to occupying our metropolitan spaces with every subsequent wave, approaching work, entertainment and life anew. We take stock of what has changed in our major cities, the hives of national activity, in the two years to date since we vacated them; how we as society have changed and how audaciously we could rebuild. March marks exactly two years since we vacated our central business districts, offices, restaurants, cinemas, sports fields and highways en masse, in response to the National State of Disaster curfews and restrictions put in place to protect us from the spread of Covid-19. As an essential worker and due to the starting time of my show, Breakfast…

Iremember attending a talk given by Clem Sunter, the exceptional scenario planner, futurologist and author, during which he spoke about various scenarios facing South Africa. One specific statement he made stuck with me. He said, and I paraphrase: “For South Africa to revive and strengthen its economy, a million entrepreneurs are needed to create the five million jobs that the politicians are talking about.” Following the global pandemic, this statement is true, now more than ever. Governments’ responses to Covid-19 hit economies around the world hard as whole industries (and countries) shut down and companies shed jobs. These job losses, however, sparked a new global trend, the growth of the ‘micropreneur’. More out of necessity than choice, side hustles and embryonic ideas have transformed into fully fledged businesses as many…

One morning I assisted one of our vendors, an elderly woman, with her misplaced bank card. Well, she’d thought it was misplaced initially, but it had in fact been stolen by her daughter who’d been withdrawing money from her mother’s account over the festive season. I sat with her, a witness to her strong feelings; sadness being the most painful one. I empathised with her and with the betrayal she had endured all this time. I asked so many questions. How could one take from a parent who is supporting them? In a few moments it struck me that this was not the only case like this. Many of the older women vendors at The Big Issue are in a similar situation. I realised that these women in the organisation…

Today, the band Gogol Bordello sings ‘Are you ready … for the roaring 2020s to begin?’ Now, with even fewer live music, cultural and arts venues than in 2015 (where has the time gone?) my instinctive answer is no. Unemployment, well above 30% in urban South Africa, continues to rise, and the employed aren’t earning enough to fuel a boom: the average household income in most metros sits around or below R10 000 a month. The pressure on systems keeps growing; informal settlements trump any supply of affordable housing and market housing struggles with double-digit vacancies in well-established neighbourhoods, according to the recent Rode’s Report. The commercial real estate market overall is struggling with low occupancy and capitalisation rates, with the exception of township-based retail. But perhaps that’s too pessimistic.…

This year’s IPAF will run from 23 to 27 February, and the organisers once again promise to ‘go large’ by adding multi-storey public murals to the skyline of the CBD, this time mainly around Harrington Street. The theme is Humanity, and the artworks will serve to reflect that “despite all the hard challenges each person individually faces, we are all connected and together we rebuild, reconnect, create, and remember our humanity,” according to the organisers. Now in its sixth year, the festival has already made its mark on the walls of Cape Town - particularly Woodstock and Salt River, but also parts of the CBD and Sea Point - in a creative and thought-provoking display of public art by both local and international contributors. Each year there is an open…