From directing traffic at a broken intersection to a zipline rescue over a sinkhole, Helen Zille’s most viral campaign moments have been immortalised as a range of collectible figurines. Proceeds support the DA political party’s community-service volunteer wing, The Blue Brigade. In addition, they fund The Blue Brigade’s service-delivery-dereliction-awareness work in the city of Johannesburg.

The veteran politician and DA mayoral candidate for the City took to social media on Tuesday 27 October to announce the fundraising initiative. The initiative includes figurines inspired by, among others, the Showmax Roast of Helen Zille, her paddling through dirty floodwater in an inflatable boat in Soweto, and riding a quad bike through unfinished Lilian Ngoyi Street roadworks.

“We’d love you to support us in this,” said Zille in the video, “it is also going to be a nice collection to commemorate what we think is going to be a path-breaking campaign with hopefully a path-breaking result for Joburg and for South Africa, and having this little set will be quite nice and probably in years to come a collector’s item.”

Behind the idea

DA campaign manager Nicole van Dyk reportedly said the initiative was inspired by Bruce Lee, a DA councillor in the Tshwane metro, who came up with the idea after seeing how people were reacting to the campaign. Van Dyk said Lee felt the team should find more ways to make the campaign even more memorable as a fundraising initiative for the Blue Brigade. Furthermore, Lee reportedly also helped with the designs. The figurines are being produced by a supplier from China known to him.

Every cent

All proceeds from the figurines go entirely to the Blue Brigade. Van Dyk said the eight figurines, which are already available to order, are a way to “help keep the initiative going.” She also noted that demand has come not only from across South Africa but from overseas as well. The Blue Brigade comprises 10 teams – two dedicated to pothole repairs and eight focused on clean-up initiatives.

The broader campaign platform – “Believe in Joburg” – centres on fixing infrastructure and restoring basic services. Zille pledges to bring in engineers to assess and repair what is broken. In addition, she promises to commission audits to root out corruption, and empower community champions.

How to order

Each figurine costs R100 and is sold as a blind box via a Google Form, meaning buyers do not know which design they will receive until they open the box. The campaign actively encourages trading among collectors to complete their sets. Orders are fulfilled by courier only, with no collection option, and delivery costs are borne by the purchaser: R150 per order within Gauteng and R350 per order for all other provinces. Moreover, delivery takes place after 4 November, with an exact date confirmed separately.

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