Meet Mama Yumna Beukes, urban gardener and one of the champions of Jozi My Jozi's new creative campaign called Babize Bonke ('let them all come' in isiZulu) that invites people to experience the revival of the city through the eyes of its creative citizens.

Meet Mama Yumna Beukes, urban gardener and one of the champions of Jozi My Jozi's new creative campaign called Babize Bonke ('let them all come' in isiZulu) that invites people to experience the revival of the city through the eyes of its creative citizens.

'There's one thing I really hate and that's dumping," says 72-year-old Yumna Beukes, who lives in Bertrams and has, to date, turned 32 illegal dumping spots in her neighbourhood and surrounds into pavement gardens. "It makes such a difference seeing beauty," she says.

Bertrams is a small suburb on the eastern edge of Johannesburg's CBD, in between New Doornfontein, Lorentzville, Bez valley, Judith's Paarl and Troyeville. An historically Jewish working-class neighbourhood, it's now home to South Africans, Congolese, Mozambicans and Zimbabweans.

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A mosque sits alongside a revivalist church. Ponte dominates the skyline, Ellis Park below it; and here, the source of the Jukskei River. Nearby is Victoria Yards, Jozi's most iconic creative hub, with makers, artists and growers all flourishing in a funky post-industrial space, and across the road, Nando's Central Kitchen, flying the flag in the inner city.

I meet Mama Yumna Beukes at the corner of 1st Street and 7th Avenue...