The youngest child of Mozambican immigrants, Sibongile (Bongi) Susan Mkhabela (nèe Mthembu) grew up in Zola, one of the poorest areas in Soweto, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng). Her mother never went to school, while her father worked as a painter but was exploited by his White employer. When her mother died in 1971, her father had to look after the family on a salary of just R20 a week.

This Cathedral is known as:'The Parish of Our Lady, Flight in to Egypt'. The German architect, Carl Otto Hager, was the designer. He also did numerous other religious Buildings. The Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria is known as the 'NG Moederkerk'.

Named after Lewis Peter Ford of the Jeppe and Ford Estate Company, Fordsburg was built on the outskirts of the Johannesburg gold reef to house miners. The multi-ethnic suburb has a fascinating and turbulent history. “Fordsburg was always a working class suburb,” Rich in History and bearing the scars of its past with pride, Fordsburg today is a collision of bold colour, spicy streets, enticing flavours and bargains galore. It was once part of the Farm on which gold was first discovered, and for years attempts were made to regulate the Area into a Whites-only District.

Achmat Dangor, an award winning novelist and poet,  was born in Newclare, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now known as Gauteng), South Africa in 1948. He lived with his grandmother in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, where he grew up. He completed his secondary education at the Fordsburg Indian High School.