Invitation to help transform the world starting with one city

 The Miracle of Khayelitsha was born out of my first attempts to write something down about my experiences in Khayelitsha. Khayelitsha is an area in Cape Town that was designed for around two hundred or three hundred thousand people and there are one million, some say two million people living in that area.

My first impression of the place was that it is massive, and I was completely lost trying to locate a friend there. Eventually he said to me - stay where you are, and I will come and find you.

I started writing about Khayelitsha and what I put on paper was so nauseating. that I could not continue with that. I met a young man in a wheelchair who was caught in crossfire that was totally unrelated to him. The bullet caused permanent damage - he would never walk again. There are many similar stories and they left me under this cloud of hopelessness and despair.

I realised that I want to write from a perspective of hope, from the perspective of a new city of a transformed city. I know that this will not be achieved in five years or ten years, but I also know that it could happen in a period of 50 to 80 years.

That is how TMOK was born - The Miracle of Khayelitsha. If you look at the circumstances of Khayelitsha it cannot be different than with a miracle. If you look at the situation in South Africa and Africa and elsewhere in the world, we need many miracles.

Out of my conversation with people about my book I met with Jansie Moolman through a mutual friend whose idea on education is referred to in the book. We want to and need to teach children (and adults for that matter) to take responsibility for their own lives and not wait for others to improve that - but more on that another day.

In my conversations with Jansie we realised two main things. In South Africa we need to deal with the huge burden of people drawing income as a social benefit from a small group in the country generating the income in the form of taxes paid.

That means people need to get work and they need to get opportunities to generate an income.

The second aspect that came out is the birth of a new city, a smart city for that matter. This city will have industry close to the city and opportunities close to the city. There will be space for livestock in certain areas - sheep, cattle, chickens. There will be space for small farms. There will be space for a million people with access to education and libraries in the centre of the city where there will only be pedestrians and bicycles allowed. Taxi's and high speed trains will not be too far away from the centre of this new city.

This new city will generate work during the construction and after it has been finished.

It is vital that the new city will have new people in it, people with a new vision and a new understanding and a fresh commitment. We cannot have the same type of thinking in a new city as the thinking we had when we constructed a city like Khayelitsha. Over time the current Khayelitsha will be transformed as well and for that we need new attitudes as well. That is what TMOK is all about.

The New City will take some of the pressure off the current Khayelitsha, but it will not be enough as we will see a continues move of people from all over Africa to South Africa until we could assist them to have adequate economic opportunities back in their home countries.

To build this, to transform the community we want people who are committed to the country and to transformation of the country, people who can think and dream far outside the current boxes of conventional thinking, people who are not afraid to dream big.

This is where you, my reader, comes in. You may not have all the skill required to help us transform Africa and the world, but you know people who may know people who may be able to assist. You may personally have some skills as well that could help directly or indirectly. The one dreaming is just as important as the one praying who is just as important as the one designing, approving or building. We cannot do this alone.

We need you to assist us - let me take you on a tour of what we need and want from you and show you how you can help to transform the world, starting with one small step.

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Hansie Louw

4 February 2023