/ 2016 / Press / General News

With a sack in the hands

  • Prize
    Bronze in Press/General News
  • Photographer
    Cristina Francesconi, Italy

If you ever imagined how it could be hell ... here it is!
Among the living bears the name of "Dandora", the biggest dump in Kenya and one of the
most polluted in the world.
Here about 10.000 people, of which 50% are children, are condemned for the entire
existence to rummage through the putrid garbage, chemicals residues and toxic fumes.
They do it with their bare hands, many only wear rubber slippers while they sink between
rot and sharp objects. The smell is so strong that you feel it in your throat like solid,
fiery.
They rummage in search of snatching food to the Marabous (Big bird similar to vultures).
They work from dawn to dusk in search of pieces of iron, plastic or glass to put in a sack
for sell by weight.

Mine is an instinctive photography that tries to leave on the picture the emotional impact of a meaningful instant, becoming witness and story.
In the 2003 I began to travel as volunteer for CESVI a NGO that works in emergencies and development in various parts of world. My assignment was to make children express their feelings and difficulties through the painting and doing so, my camera was always with me. My first experience was in Zimbabwe, in a pediatric ward for children in terminal status of Aids. To learn to photograph the pain with the necessary dignity that the subject deserves it is not easy, but it is an obligation.
I have been working as volunteer in many hospitals, with the street children, in refugge camps, in the Brazilian favelases and South African townships, with the rebels' victims in Colombia, the untouchables of India and juvenile prisons in Kenya, having the opportunityty to realize photographic report with important themes.