Independent Media photographer wins award for chronicling poorest
CAPE TIMES lensman Phando Jikelo was announced the Eastern Cape regional winner of the Vodacom Journalism award 2016 in the photography category last night.
Jikelo was honoured for a feature he had compiled while working for Independent Media’s Isolezwe lesiXhosa in Port Elizabeth.
This is the third time that Jikelo has won the award. Last year, he was bestowed the award for the Eastern and Western Cape regions while at the Daily Voice in 2014.
The work that won him this year’s award was about a struggling family of 11 children staying with their ailing grandmother in Entsimbini village.
The children, aged between one and 11 years old, had been left by their parents, who went to Johannesburg in a quest to find work.
“It was such a moving situation. This family was struggling so much that they relied on a feeding scheme from school.
“Their two mud rondavels were completely unsuitable for them. The youngest child was about a year old, and their parents had left with the social grant cards,” Jikelo said last night.
He said he felt honoured by the recognition.
Cape Times editor Aneez Salie said: “We are exceedingly proud of Phando for winning his third award. It is a measure of his own excellence and of the new ethos of Independent Media under transformed ownership and leadership.
“Phando’s awardwinning work focuses on the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable of children left to fend for themselves in a country of often obscene riches and perverse waste.
“His keen social conscience is an example to all journalists and typifies the true spirit of ubuntu.”
He has recently documented the lives of some of the most vulnerable women – abused, blind, living in poverty and being taken advantage of – as part of marking Women’s Day, featured in the Cape Times.