Masixole Feni is this year’s winner of the Ernest Cole Award for his project ‘A Drain on Our Dignity’. Feni, an activist photographer who also works for GroundUp documenting social issues, won the award for focusing his camera on the lack of service delivery and the life of the marginalised. As he says, “I live at the back of an RDP house in Mfuleni on the Cape Flats. I experience issues like poor sanitation, access to clean water and the flooding first hand.” Sixty years after the anniversary of the Freedom Charter which campaigned for basic human rights, one person, one vote and well South Africa’s democracy, many South Africans still find themselves struggling for basic living conditions. As Feni points out, “Marginalised people were neglected by the apartheid regime. Twenty one years into our democracy, it is a reality that has stayed the same for many.” – See more here.
