Jikelo awarded for the sixth time
MULTIPLE award-winning photographer Phandulwazi Jikelo has bagged another one – a Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Award for his feature in the Cape Times about a visually impaired Blackheath resident, Mirtle Virrooi, produced while he was on staff. He has since been transferred to the paper’s sister company, the African News Agency (ANA).
The latest award, his sixth in three years, followed last month’s Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Award in Moscow for a stunning image while on the paper’s staff from a Grabouw housing protest, selected from among 5 000 entries from 76 countries. The Cape Times had used it in its masthead.
“As much as I’m happy to receive this award, I would only really celebrate once Miss Mirtle Virrooi starts living in a better place, a place she can call home. Thanks to the Cape Times team and ANA pictures for believing in me,” Jikelo said last night.
He said he had written to the housing authorities about Virrooi’s plight, “but the wheels turn slowly”.
Cape Times Editor Aneez Salie said: “Phando simply continues to thrill us and to make us so proud that we produce among the best of the best.
“There is no doubt that his continued success is down firstly to his keen social conscience. His awards have been for work portraying the plight of the poorest of the poor, the downtrodden, the forgotten.
“Secondly, his work was made possible by the change in ownership, leadership and ethos at the Cape Times and Independent.”
Last year, Jikelo was the Eastern Cape regional winner of the Vodacom Journalism Awards 2016 for photography for a portfolio on a poor, child-headed household living in a dilapidated dwelling. It prompted the Eastern Cape government to providing the children with a new house and ongoing support.