He Grew Up There. Now He Takes the Kids Back Out.
How a Men’s Health athlete and his best friend are changing the way Cape Town’s township children see their city — one run at a time.
CAPE TOWN: On a Saturday morning in Sea Point, fifteen children from Samora Machel township laced up their running shoes. They didn’t know where they were going. They didn’t know what was waiting for them at the end.
They ran. Sea Point gave way to Clifton. Clifton gave way to Camps Bay. The Atlantic Ocean stretched out beside them, closer than most of them had ever been to it.
At the finish line, a fire was already burning.
The braai had been set up by Jaden, a childhood friend of their running coach — a young Cape Town entrepreneur who’d driven ahead while the kids ran to have the coals ready when they arrived. Six kilograms of boerewors. Rolls. An afternoon with nowhere to be.
The children ate. They swam. They stayed for hours.
The video of that afternoon has now been watched more than 100,000 times.
“You Are Not Where You Come From”
The man who led that run is Nkosi Nsubmu. He is a Men’s Health South Africa cover athlete, a runner, and a community figure — and he grew up in Samora Machel, the same township these children call home.
That fact is not incidental. It is the entire point.
“I had a godmother who used to take us hiking, to the beach, to Grand West to go ice skating. That’s where I learned the importance of things like this. I had something to talk about. Something to look forward to. And there were kids in my neighbourhood who never got that opportunity — I could tell how much they needed it.”— Nkosi Nsubmu
Nsubmu has been organising these outings for a small but growing group of children from his old neighbourhood. The first time, there were six kids. This time, fifteen. He expects thirty at the next one. By Heritage Day in September, he hopes for more than a hundred.
The goal is straightforward, even if the impact is profound: take children somewhere new, show them something different, and let them feel — even for an afternoon — that the city belongs to them too.
“You want to make memories. You want to have fun. You want to be inspired by the right things. There were kids in my neighbourhood who never got this opportunity. And I know exactly what it would have meant to them.”— Nkosi Nsubmu
Two Friends, No Budget, Real Impact
There is no NGO behind this initiative. No corporate sponsor writing cheques. No government programme funding the boerewors.
There is Nkosi — a runner with a platform and a memory of what it felt like to be shown something bigger than his street.
And there is Jaden — his best friend, a Cape Town entrepreneur who built a small business from a bakkie and a backyard, and who believes that fire has always been the oldest way human beings come together.
“Fire is the most significant physical element of human connection since the beginning of time. If we can use that to make a child feel seen — that’s what we’re going to do.”— Jaden
The afternoon in Camps Bay ended with magic tricks, ocean swims, and a conversation between two friends about what it means to grow up in Cape Town with limited access to the parts of the city that feel beautiful and safe.
Nsubmu was emotional. Not performed emotion — the kind that catches a person off guard.
“I wish I could speak how I feel. If I could put this mic in my heart… I’m just feeling amazing. Really grateful. I grew up in that same area. And I know what this does for a child. I know.”— Nkosi Nsubmu
A Movement Growing in Real Time
What started as a quiet, unsponsored gesture between two friends is becoming something larger.
The video posted to social media crossed 100,000 views within days. The comments — hundreds of them — tell the story of a city that is hungry for this kind of content: real, warm, South African, and hopeful.
But the social media numbers are, in many ways, beside the point. The point is the next run. And the one after that.
“We have to start with ourselves. First time we had six kids. Now fifteen. Next time maybe thirty, sixty. That’s how it grows. And we need brands, companies, individuals to get involved — not with big miraculous things. Small things. Come help us.”— Nkosi Nsubmu
The ask is genuinely modest: water for the runners, transport assistance, kit for the kids, perhaps a photography class or an art workshop. The kind of contribution that costs little but means everything to a ten-year-old who has never been to Camps Bay.
By Heritage Day — South Africa’s national Braai Day on 24 September — Nsubmu and Jaden intend to bring more than a hundred children together for the biggest version yet of what started with six kids and a fire.
For the Children of Samora Machel
At the end of that Saturday afternoon in Camps Bay, one of the children was asked if he’d had a good time.
He said yes. Then he went back to look at the ocean one more time before they left.
That is the whole story, really. A child looking at the ocean like it belongs to him.
Because it does.
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Alan Straton
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