Fri Feb 11, 6:00pm ET – Focus For Humanity, a non-profit organisation that provides grants to photographers working with our planet’s most vulnerable peoples, announced today that Alex Masi, a London-based documentary and humanitarian photographer had been awarded the Foundation’s 2011 NGO Assignment Fellowship to work with the Sambhavna and Chingari Clinics in Bhopal and the Bhopal Medical Appeal.
Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) February 11, 2011: One of two major awards to be offered annually by Focus for Humanity, the NGO assignment Fellowship is a grant of US$15,000 for a full-time photographer to work on a specific NGO project assignment. The beneficiary NGO and the photographer make a joint application, outlining how the photographer’s work will be used to further the aims of the NGO. One key aspect of the grant is to help underfunded NGOs understand the value of images as part of their communications strategy, and to help them understand the value in budgeting to use full time humanitarian photographers to provide those images on an ongoing basis.
Included in the US$15,000 fellowship are sponsorship from X-Rite, ThinkTankPhoto, and throughout the fellowship year the Foundation provides business, branding, marketing and social networking advice to both the photographer and the NGO to ensure that maximum value is created from the use of the fellowship grant. The foundation is awarded by means of a competitive portfolio review and an assessment of a joint online application by the Foundation’s Board that is composed of acclaimed Travel photographer Nevada Wier; Human Rights Watch Senior Counsel, Sara Dharehsori and Brian Cabrera, the Foundation’s Legal Counsel.
“Alex’s powerful images impressed the Judges with their ability to convey the emotional story of the ongoing medical challenges of the victims of the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster,” explained Marco Ryan, the Foundations Co-founder. “We are delighted that the grant will allow Alex and the Bhopal Medical Appeal to work on a number of documentary projects, profiling the BMA’s essential work and supporting their visual communication needs.”
“I am extremely happy and excited about receiving the Foundation’s NGO Assignment Fellowship 2011. Since my first project in Bhopal I have always wanted to dedicate more time and to document the city and the Bhopal Medical Appeal’s work thoroughly. The chance has finally arrived and it will help the BMA greatly in sponsoring awareness about the health crises in Bhopal and taking care of the thousands of patients and children affected within the city.”
(Left): Alex came across a lone girl refreshing under the late monsoon rain in the impoverished Oriya Basti Colony in Bhopal. The rain will reach the chemical waste buried under the ground and then poison the drinking water for the over 30.000 urban slum dwellers living nearby.
