Alessandro Penso , General News , 1st prize singles , Worldpressphoto2014

Temporary accommodation
21 November 2013

Military Ramp, an emergency refugee center, was opened in September 2013 in an abandoned school in Sofia, Bulgaria. The center provides housing for about 800 Syrian refugees, including 390 children. Bulgaria, already hard hit by the economic crisis and heightened political instability, is confronting a refugee crisis that appears to coincide with increased efforts by Greece to close off its border with Turkey. Bulgaria, however, is totally unprepared to face a refugee crisis.

Photographer, Italy

Alessandro Penso studied clinical psychology at Rome's La Sapienza University. In 2007, he received a scholarship to study photojournalism at the Scuola Romana di Fotografia. Since he completed his studies, his work has won several awards, including the PDN Photo Student Award, the PDN Photo Annual Award, Px3, the Project Launch Award in Santa Fe 2011, and the Terry O' Neill TAG Award 2012.

Alessandro is deeply committed to social issues, and in recent years he has focused on the issue of immigration in the Mediterranean region. He has produced work on detention centers in Malta, the situation of migrant workers in the agricultural sector in the south of Italy, and young people stuck in limbo in Greece. Motivated by a desire to raise awareness of situations of injustice on Europe's margins, Alessandro intends to continue working on this issue in the years to come.

He is also keenly aware that the difficult social and economic conditions in Mediterranean countries are contributing to an increase in social isolation, xenophobia, and violence, which represent, for migrants, an obstacle to their enjoyment of the most basic human rights.

In 2012, Alessandro witnessed a brutal attack on a group of migrants in Corinth, Greece, in which a young man, Mostafa, was hit by a car. This experience further motivated Alessandro to continue his work to raise awareness of and to help combat xenophobia and race-related violence. He hopes his work will help fight the dehumanization and stereotyping of migrants, sometimes for political gain. His work has appeared in numerous publications.