The Hope Dealers: Makers Valley Gives Joburg's Jobless a Way to Start Their Own Businesses

Photo Credit: The Hope Dealers

Once a manufacturing hub, Makers Valley is now a thriving community of artists, farmers, crafters and changemakers who are being uplifted rather than pushed out!

Johannesburg, South Africa (07 October 2026) – This week’s episode of The Hope Dealers takes us to a neighbourhood that has flipped urban decay over into opportunity. In episode ten of her series, Mandy Wiener heads to Makers Valley at Victoria Yards, where a community has reclaimed its industrial heritage and built something remarkable from it.

Spread across Lorentzville, Troyeville, Bertrams and surrounds, the area was once Joburg’s light-manufacturing heartland, filled with panel beaters, furniture makers, metalworkers and industrial laundries. When heavy industry moved on, decay set in, but the culture of making stayed.

The neighbourhood became an affordable landing place for working-class South Africans and migrants from across the continent, creating a diverse, high-energy community that also faces steep youth unemployment and poverty.

The catalyst came around 2017 with Victoria Yards. Developer Brian Green bought a sprawling 1940s steam laundry site in Lorentzville and, instead of flattening it for high-end real estate, transformed it into an open space for artisan workshops, urban agriculture and artist studios. New foot traffic, creative energy and investment followed.

Locals then widened the idea of a ‘maker’ beyond factory workers to include urban farmers, carpenters, youth coders, cooks, crafters and artists. Drawing on Ashoka’s global Changemaker movement, they set out to build a ‘wellbeing economy’, one that puts people and planet first. That loose coalition of residents, businesses, academics and NGOs became the non-profit Makers Valley Partnership.

The valley is full of hope. There are digital literacy programmes, creative writing workshops, community gardens, and a library championing African authors. A business incubation programme backs local entrepreneurs with the tools and know-how to get started. Students, budding business owners and young people looking for an alternative to the streets all find a place here.

Mandy meets some of the entrepreneurs who launched their businesses through the programme. You’ll have to watch the episode to hear their stories, and to find out whether they think they qualify as Hope Dealers!

What makes Makers Valley so powerful is that it’s a blueprint for urban renewal, built on creativity, resilience and ingenuity. As one of the entrepreneurs Mandy meets says, many kids on the streets don’t have hope, but when they see people like them succeeding, they start to believe that it’s possible.

Makers Valley is the tenth of ten inspiring stories featured in The Hope Dealers, which introduces South Africans who are making the city better in practical ways. Watch the episode below, then go and see what’s being made in the Valley!

You can follow Mandy’s journey via her social media. Check out her Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and X for more information.

The series will also be available on Primedia+, EWN and across Primedia and Mandy’s social media platforms. The audio interviews will also be released as podcasts and broadcast on The Midday Report.